Malta’s unemployment rate is on a downward trend and remains fourth lowest in the European Union, the Finance Ministry said.

It said that according to a press release published by Eurostat on October 1, Malta’s unemployment rate stood at 6.4 per cent in August. This places the country alongside Austria (4.9 per cent), Germany (5.2 per cent) and Luxembourg (5.8 per cent).

Furthermore, Malta remained firmly below the unemployment averages for the Eurozone (12 per cent) and the European Union (10.9 per cent).

Eurostat’s press release also showed that Malta’s unemployment rate dropped from 6.6 per cent in May to 6.4 per cent in August.

The National Statistics Office yesterday said that the number of people registering as unemployed last month amounted to 7,619 - 750 more than the number in the same month last year.

However, the ministry said that the published administrative unemployment data referred only to registered persons and was intended to provide information on the profile of these persons. It was not intended to reflect the national unemployment rate, which included both registered and unregistered persons seeking a job.

Furthermore, relying only on the number of persons registering for work would not provide observers with an accurate picture of the unemployment rate, as it did not account for the growth of the labour force.