Unemployment 'stable' in Malta, Luxembourg

Malta and Luxembourg registered the lowest increase in unemployment in the past 12 months among the 16-member eurozone, according to the latest figures released by Eurostat.

Malta's unemployment rate in March stood at 6.9 per cent, 0.2 per cent lower than in the preceding month and 0.2 per cent higher than in March 2009.

Eurostat said that while the eurozone in general registered an average annual increase in unemployment of almost one percentage point, Malta and Luxembourg managed to keep their unemployment levels stable over the 12-month period characterised by the global recession.

Last March, the Netherlands had the lowest number of jobless (4.1 per cent), followed by Austria (4.9 per cent) and Luxembourg (5.6 per cent).

Spain, on the other hand, saw its unemployment levels reaching 19.1 per cent, up from 17.4 per cent a year earlier. However, the record was Latvia's at 22.3 per cent.

Malta's unemployment in the past 12 months increased mostly among those under 25, reaching 14.8 per cent from 14.1 per cent a year earlier. Unemployment also increased among males to 6.8 per cent from 6.3 but declined among females to 7.2 per cent from 7.6.

In general, Eurostat estimates that more than 23 million men and women in the EU were without a job in March, an increase of more than 2.5 million in the past year.

In the US, the unemployment rate stood at 9.7 per cent while that of Japan, another major world economy, was just 4.8 per cent.