Eurozone jobless rate steady at 9.9%

The jobless rate in the eurozone remained high at 9.9 percent in May, unchanged compared with April, the European Union's (EU) statistical bureau Eurostat said on Friday. It was down from 10.2 percent registered one year ago, a sign that the eurozone labor market is getting better as the economy is recovering, but the pace has been too slow. For the 27-nation EU, the jobless rate also remained at 9.3 percent, unchanged from the previous month. It was 9.7 percent a year ago. Eurostat estimated that 22.378 million men and women in the EU, of whom 15.510 million were in the eurozone, were unemployed in May. Among the member states, the lowest jobless rate was recorded in the Netherlands, which was 4.2 percent. The highest rate was agains seen in Spain, which was 20.9 percent in May. Youth under 25 years continue to be the worst hit by unemployment, with jobless rate of eurozone youth standing at 20.0 percent and that of the EU at 20.4 percent. The unemployment situation in Europe was still worse than that in the United States and Japan. In May, the unemployment rate was 9.1 percent in the U.S., while it was 4.7 percent in Japan in April.