High unemployment in January

Malta registered a substantial increase in its unemployment levels last January according to new estimates released yesterday by Eurostat, the EU's statistical arm.

In the first month of this year, the unemployment rate went up to 7.8 per cent, the highest level registered over the past 12 months and up from 7.5 per cent last December. A year before, in January 2005, Malta had an unemployment rate of 7.1 per cent.

According to Eurostat, Malta had one of the highest increases among the 25 EU member states during the past year. The only countries which have seen a bigger increase in their unemployment levels were Luxembourg and Hungary. At the same time Eurostat said Malta's unemployment levels are still lower than the average in the EU which last January stood at 8.5 per cent.

In January, the lowest rates were registered in Ireland (4.3 per cent), Denmark (4.4 per cent), the Netherlands (4.6 per cent) and the UK (five per cent) Unemployment rates were highest in Poland (17.2 per cent), Slovakia ( 15.8 per cent) and Greece (10.1 per cent).

Eurostat estimates that in January, 18.5 million people were unemployed in the EU.