Eurozone unemployment hits new low

Unemployment across the Eurozone has fallen to a fresh low, official data released on Thursday showed.

According to Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics office, the seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate was 6.8% in February. That was down on both January’s rate of 6.9% and February 2021’s rate of 8.2%.

An all-time low for unemployment in the Eurozone, February’s rate is also well below pre-pandemic levels. Unemployment was at 7.3% in February 2020, when around 1 million more people were out of work.

Across the wider EU, the rate was 6.2% last month, compared to January’s 6.3% and February 2021’s 7.5%.

A total of 13.267 million people were estimated to be out of work across the EU last month, 11.155 million of which were in the Eurozone.

Among individual member states, the unemployment rate in Germany - the bloc’s biggest economy - was unchanged month-on-month at 3.1%. In Spain it was 12.6%, in France 7.4% and in Italy 8.5%.

Bert Colijn, senior economist, Eurozone, ING, said: "Germany has hit very low levels of unemployment and has seen the pace of decline slow, while France, Italy and Spain are still seeing rapid improvements in people returning to work. This helps boost nominal income growth, somewhat dampening the negative effects of inflation on real household incomes.

"The rapid recovery of the job market is set to slow from here on. The war adds uncertainty to the employment outlook, and could result in delayed new hiring. This is especially the case in manufacturing."