Unemployment in the euro area remains highest in Greece and Spain.
Portugal experienced the region’s biggest drop in unemployment, falling during the year from 16% to 14%. This left 725,000 people officially recorded as unemployed.
Spain also experienced a 2% fall (from 26% to 24%) but even this could not budge it from the second highest in the eurozone.
Overall, the jobless rate was stable at 11.5% in August, showing no change from July.
Young people under 25 without jobs remained a high concern. More than half of Spain’s youth (a staggering 54%) have no work, and Greece is not far behind with 51.5%.
Italy’s 44% put it at third highest in the euro land. Portugal’s youth suffer 35.6%, a fall of only 1.5% from August last year.
There were 124,000 young folk without work. Throughout the euro region there were 3,332,000 hoping for jobs out of nearly 5 million in all of Europe.