youth unemployment
In July, unemployment figures across the euro area showed a notable drop from June, marking a historic decline. The unemployment rate in the euro area fell by 0.1 percentage points to 6.6% in July, while the broader European Union rate slipped to 6.0%. Eurostat, the bloc’s statistical office, confirmed the trend on Thursday and also revised June data for nineteen euro-area countries and for the 27-member EU as a whole. The June rate for the euro area was adjusted from 6.6% to 6.7%, and for the EU from 6.0% to 6.1% (Eurostat). This update aligns last year’s July unemployment with the latest observations, noting 7.7% in the euro area and 6.9% across the EU at that time (July 2021). In July 2022, there were 12.95 million unemployed in the EU, with 10.98 million in the euro area (Eurostat).
Compared with June, the EU saw a reduction of 113,000 unemployed people, while the euro area recorded a drop of 77,000. Over the year, July 2022 compared with July 2021 shows a fall of about 1.85 million in the EU and around 1.57 million in the euro area. By country, the biggest decline from June to July occurred in Greece, where the rate fell 0.9 percentage points from 12.3% to 11.4%. Conversely, Cyprus experienced the sharpest uptick, rising by 0.6 percentage points (Cyprus noted an 8% rate). These shifts reflect diverging employment dynamics across member states (Eurostat).
Spain maintained a relatively stable rate at 12.6%, the highest in the EU, followed by Greece at 11.4% and Cyprus at 8%, with Italy at 7.9% also among the higher figures in the bloc. The lowest unemployment rates were recorded in the Czech Republic at 2.3%, Poland at 2.6%, and both Malta and Germany at 2.9% (Eurostat). Over the year, Greece and Spain posted the largest declines in unemployment—2.9 and 2.5 percentage points, respectively—while Cyprus saw the most pronounced increase in unemployment by 1.2 points. Among young people, unemployment for those under 25 fell by 0.2 percentage points from June to July in both euro-area and EU-wide figures, moving from 14.4% to 14.2% and 14.2% to 14.0% respectively (Eurostat).
youth unemployment
Spain ranked high for youth unemployment within the EU, second only to Greece, with rates around 26.9% against Greece at 28.6%. However, there was improvement among Hispanic youth under 25 compared with June, dropping from 27.3% to 27.0% year-over-year, and from 33.3% in July 2021. In total, about 2.63 million young people were unemployed in the EU in July, with 2.17 million of them in the euro area (Eurostat). From June to July, youth unemployment fell by 55,000 in the EU and 35,000 in the nineteen euro-area countries. The year-over-year change shows a drop of 329,000 in the 27, with 244,000 fewer in the euro area. By gender, EU data indicate that female unemployment stood at 6.4% in July, unchanged from June, while male unemployment remained at 5.7% (Eurostat).
gender inequality
Within the euro zone, female unemployment rose to 7.0% in July from 7.1% in June, while male unemployment held steady at 6.3%. In Spain, male unemployment rose by 0.1 percentage point to 11.1%, and female unemployment stayed at 14.3% compared with June. These figures illustrate persistent gender gaps in the labor market across the region, though some countries show narrowing disparities as youth and total unemployment trends diverge across age and gender groups (Eurostat).