Jobless in Malta among lowest in eurozone

Malta's unemployment levels have gone up slightly but remain under control despite increasing layoffs particularly in the manufacturing sector due to lower international demand as the worldwide recession bites.

Eurostat unemployment figures for February published yesterday show Malta's level of unemployment - 6.4 per cent - among the lowest in the euro area. The only other euro members with a better record are The Netherlands (2.7 per cent), Austria (4.5 per cent) and Cyprus (4.5 per cent).

On average, the eurozone unemployment rate in February continued to soar to reach 8.5 per cent, more than two percentage points above Malta. Still, Malta's unemployment rate was increasing albeit at a slower pace than other member states. In February 2008, Malta's unemployment rate was 0.5 per cent lower.

According to Eurostat, compared to January, Malta's unemployment rate increased by 0.5 per cent among the under 25s; 0.1 per cent among males and 0.3 per cent among females wanting to work.

On an EU level, Eurostat said that in February the highest unemployment rate was recorded in Spain (15.5 per cent), Latvia (14.4 per cent) and Lithuania (13.7 per cent).

Compared with a year ago, seven EU member states recorded a drop in their unemployment rates, 19 witnessed an increase and the rate remained stable in one.

The largest drops were observed in Bulgaria (6.2 to 5.5 per cent) and Slovakia (10.2 to 9.8 per cent) and the highest increases in Lithuania (4.4 to 13.7 per cent), Latvia (6.1 to 14.4 per cent) and Spain (9.3 to 15.5 per cent).

Eurostat estimated that 19.2 million men and women in the EU27, 13.5 million in the eurozone, were unemployed in February. Compared with January, the number of unemployed increased by 478,000 in the EU27 and by 319,000 in the euro area. In comparison with February last year, unemployment went up by 3.2 million in the EU27 and by 2.2 million in the euro area.