August jobless rate down to 6.4 per cent

Malta's unemployment rate was 6.4 per cent last August, down from 7.1 per cent a year ago and 2.3 percentage points less than the EU average, according to Eurostat.

The EU's statistical arm placed Malta in the 10th position in the EU unemployment table together with Hungary. Fourteen member states have higher unemployment levels than Malta.

Seventeen of the 25 EU states recorded a decrease in their unemployment rate over a year, one remained stable and seven reported an increase.

The largest relative decreases were observed in Lithuania (10.7 per cent to 7.5 per cent), Estonia (9.1 per cent to 7.4 per cent), Slovakia (17.8 per cent to 15.2 per cent), Spain (10.8 per cent to 9.4 per cent) and Denmark (5.4 per cent to 4.8 per cent).

Countries with lower unemployment rates than Malta registered an increase in their levels over the past 12 months. These include Luxembourg (4.9 per cent to 5.5 per cent), Hungary (5.8 per cent to 6.4 per cent), Cyprus (five per cent to 5.5 per cent) and Austria (4.9 per cent to 5.2 per cent).

Eurostat estimates that 18.8 million citizens in the EU were unemployed in August.