Eurostat reported that in April, 2003, the rate of unemployment in the 15 member states of the European Union was at 8.1 per cent, compared to eight per cent in March. A year earlier the rate of unemployment was 7.6 per cent.
Eurostat is the statistical office of the European Communities based in Luxembourg.
The 8.1 per cent represents 14.3 million unemployed men and women.
The lowest rate of unemployment, 3.5 per cent, was that registered in Luxembourg, while the highest, 11.4 per cent, was that in Spain.
In Malta, the latest statistics available from the Labour Force Survey carried out between November 25 and December 1, 2002 by the National Statistics Office show that the number of unemployed during December 2002 was 10,875 or 6.8 per cent.