Last month, a total of 103,000 foreigners were officially registered as unemployed – a rise by 68 percent compared with the same month a year ago.
Advertisement
“Despite January’s decline, the eurozone’s unemployment rate remains too high to generate meaningful inflationary pressure – It is still well above the 1999-2007 average of 8.8 percent”, Allen said.
The number of unemployed persons decreased by 105,000 from the previous month to 16.647 million.
However, looking on the positive side, he said: “The marked overall drop in euro zone unemployment through to January, together with negligible inflation/deflation should be supportive to consumer spending, which will hopefully allow it to play a key role in helping euro zone growth regain momentum after stuttering recently”. BA executive Raimund Becker told journalists that the Labor Agency was expecting foreigner joblessness to rise further in the second quarter of the year, adding that a “much stronger increase” was expected in the third and fourth quarters of 2016.
Unemployment across the 28-country European Union also dropped, falling to 8.9% in January from 9% in December and compared to 9.8% in January 2015.
“For a region in desperate need of lower unemployment, the near-stalling of jobs growth in the manufacturing sector comes as disappointing news”, said Chris Williamson, Markit’s chief economist.
Elsewhere, Italy’s unemployment rate logged a surprise decline at the start of the year, preliminary data from the statistical office ISTAT showed Tuesday.
The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 6.2 percent, remaining at the post-reunification low.
Spain has one of the highest jobless rates in the Eurozone at 20.5%.
Advertisement
Meanwhile, the youth unemployment rate, which applies to the 15-24 group, climbed to 39.3 percent from 38.7 percent.
