Unemployment keeps climbing in the EU

Unemployment in the European Union and the euro area continued to climb in August, following the same trend as in the previous months, statistics from the EU’s statistical office show. 

According to Eurostat, the unemployment rate in the EU increased to 7.4% in August, while in the euro area it rose to 8.1%.

Eurostat said it estimates that just over 15.6 million people in the EU and around 13.2 million in the euro area were unemployed in August.

It said that, compared with July, the number of unemployed increased by 238,000 in the EU and 251,000 in the euro area.

A breakdown of the statistics shows that over 3 million of those unemployed in the EU were young people under the age of 25, and 2.46 million of these were in the euro area.

If seen according to gender, the unemployment rate for women in August stood at 7.6% in the EU, up from 7.5% in July.

The unemployment rate for men was 7.1% in August, stable when compared to the previous month.

In the euro area, the unemployment rate for women increased from 8.3% in July to 8.4% in August while it increased from 7.8% to 7.9% for men.

[Xinhua]