Eurozone unemployment edges lower

Unemployment edged lower across the Eurozone in September, official data showed on Wednesday.

According to Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics office, the seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate was 7.4% in September, down marginally on August’s rate of 7.5% and in line with forecasts. It was also below September 2020’s rate of 8.6%, and the lowest rate since April 2020.

The number of people out of work in the single currency bloc fell by 255,000 to 12.1m.

Across the wider EU, the unemployment rate was 6.7% compared to 6.9% in August and 7.7% in September 2020. The number of people out of work fell by 306,000.

Among individual countries, Germany’s unemployment rate held steady at 3.4%, Spain’s edged lower to 14.6% from 14.8% in August, France's eased to 7.7% from 8.0%, and Italy’s rate was 9.2% compared to 9.3% a month previously.

Melanie Debono, senior Europe economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said: "The Eurozone labour market recovery continued in September, and we expect it to continue and lead to further falls in the unemployment rate in the coming months.

"The risk of a spike in unemployment once job retention schemes are wound down - they are slated in end in December in Italy, France and Germany, and in February next year in Spain - has diminished, as the number of people on these schemes has fallen sharply, with no parallel increase in unemployment.

"There may still be some increase as firms let go of workers to alleviate pressure on payroll commitments, especially given the rising costs from supply bottlenecks and constraints. But we expect this will be limited."