Unemployment in Malta rose slightly to 7.3 per cent in June maintaining last year's trend as the country felt the effects of the global economic crisis.

Unemployment increased by 0.1 per cent over May, according to statistics released yesterday by Eurostat. The increase in the number of people trying to find work is significantly high when considered on a 12-month basis: in June 2008 the unemployment rate was 1.3 per cent lower, at six per cent.

The worst hit among the unemployed is the younger generation as the increase among the under-25s looking for work stood at three per cent over a 12-month period. Last June, the unemployed youth rate stood at 15.4 per cent.

The picture is more worrying on an EU level and Malta seems to be facing the economic downturn relatively better when compared to the rest of the eurozone.

The EU's statistics arm said unemployment in the eurozone reached 9.4 per cent in June, an increase of two percentage points over June 2008 and a growth of 0.1 per cent over May. This is the highest rate of unemployment for the euro area since 1999.

Compared with a year ago, all 27 EU member states recorded an increase in their unemployment rate. The smallest increases were observed in Germany (7.3 to 7.7 per cent), Romania (5.7 to 6.2 per cent) and The Netherlands (2.7 to 3.3 per cent). The highest were registered in Estonia (4.6 to 17 per cent), Latvia (6.4 to 17.2 per cent) and Lithuania (5.1 to 15.8 per cent).

Eurostat estimated that 21,526 million men and women in the EU27 were unemployed in June, an increase of 246,000 compared to May.