Malta last month still had one of the lowest unemployment rates in the EU but its figure has now edged up to six per cent.

The EU’s average during the same month stood at 11 per cent, according to Eurostat, which placed Malta fourth from bottom for the number of jobless.

The number of registered unemployed in Malta went up by 634 since July of last year, a rise of nine per cent.

Meanwhile, joblessness in the rest of the EU seems to have reached a peak and recent GDP figures indicate an economic recovery which may start pushing unemployment figures down.

Commenting on the recent Eurostat statistics, EU Employment Commissioner Laszlo Andor said now that the GDP figures for the second quarter had turned positive, unemployment figures confirmed that joblessness had stopped rising in many countries, even in Spain, Portugal and Ireland which were badly hit by economic turmoil.

“After six quarters of recession and 10 quarters of rising unemployment, this levelling off in unemployment is relatively good news,” he said.

“It is encouraging that many countries have managed to slightly reduce seasonally-adjusted unemployment without a time lag after economic growth picked up or even while still in recession.

“The slight decline in unemployment in these countries shows the importance of active employment policy measures, like hiring subsidies, reduced taxes on low-paid labour, re-skilling and good-quality job placement services.”

In July, the highest unemployment levels were re-ported in Greece (27.6 per cent) and Spain (26.3 per cent), while Austria had the lowest unemployment (4.8 per cent), followed by Germany (5.3 per cent), the EU’s largest economy.

Unemployment figures