Unemployment falls again

Unemployment continued to decline last month, with Eurostat figures showing it fell to 5.6 per cent in March, one percentage point less than 12 months earlier and a slight drop of 0.1 per cent on February.

Malta's current rate of unemployment is significantly lower than the average in the eurozone which in March stood at 7.1 per cent.

Malta's figures for March show an improvement across the board. The most significant was registered among youths (under 25) whose unemployment fell from 14 per cent in March 2007 to 10.6 per cent last month.

Unemployment slipped to 5.1 per cent (six per cent in March 2007) among males and to 6.7 per cent (7.8 per cent) among females.

In the other member states, the lowest rates were registered in the Netherlands (2.6 per cent) and Denmark (3.1 per cent), with the highest in Slovakia (9.8 per cent) and Spain (9.3 per cent).