Eurozone jobs still a headache
October 31, 2013
The eurozone's unemployment rate was stable at 12.2 percent in September, the European Union's statistics agency (Eurostat) announced Thursday.
Eurostat announced that the absolute number of people out of work in the bloc edged up by 60,000 in the month under review, but the increase was not enough to push up the overall rate already marking a record high.
With 19.45 million people still seeking employment in the eurozone, economic recovery has not been strong enough to improve the situation on the labor market.
Waiting for a stronger economy
"The latest figures put a dent in hopes that the labor market may have reached a turning point," Capital Economic analyst Ben May said in a statement.
In the second quarter of the year, the eurozone's economy grew by 0.3 percent compared with the previous three months. It technically brought the bloc out of a recession that saw six straight quarterly declines.
The September figures again revealed huge disparities, with Greece and Spain remaining at the top of the jobless range, posting unemployment rates above 26 percent. By contrast, Austria and Germany again logged the lowest jobless figures, at about 5 percent.
hg/mkg (dpa, AP)