Eurostat – the EU's statistics arm – said today that Malta's unemployment levels in April were the lowest recorded for the island in the past 12 months and the fifth lowest among the 27 EU member states.

Eurostat said that Malta's unemployment rate last April stood at 6.2 per cent, down 0.1 per cent over the previous month and a full one percentage point on April 2010.

At the same time, unemployment showed a slight decrease all over the EU with the average for the euro area down to 9.9 per cent from 10.2 per cent a year earlier.

A breakdown of Malta's unemployment statistics shows that those seeking a job decreased most among the young (under 25 year olds) from 13.6 per cent in April 2010 to 10.8 per cent last April. However, according to Eurostat, Malta registered a fall in unemployment across the board with figures of 6.4 per cent for females, down 1.5 per cent over April 2010 and 6.2 per cent for males, down 0.7 per cent.

On a general EU level, Eurostat said that compared with a year ago, the unemployment rate fell in 17 EU member states, increased in nine and remained stable in Luxembourg.

The largest falls were observed in Estonia (18.8 to 13.8 per cent), Latvia (20.1 to 17.2 per cent) and Sweden (9.1 to 7.4 per cent).

On the other hand, the highest increases were registered in Greece (10.2 to 14.1 per cent), Lithuania (15.8 to 17.3 per cent), Bulgaria (10.0 to 11.4 per cent) and Ireland (13.3 to 14.7 per cent).

The only EU member states which had lower unemployment rates than Malta in April were the Netherlands, Austria, Luxembourg and Germany.

Meanwhile, according to the latest flash estimates by Eurostat, the average inflation rate in the euro area in May is expected to be 2.7 per cent 0r 0.1 per cent lower than April.

Malta's inflation rate in April stood at 2.4 per cent.