EU February unemployment

Eurostat reported that in February 2002, the rate of unemployment in the 15 member states of the European Union remained unchanged at 7.7 per cent, as it was in January 2002.

Unemployment in the EU during February 2001 was 7.6 per cent, according to Eurostat figures, which were distributed by the Malta-EU Information Centre.

The lowest rate of unemployment, 2.3 per cent was that registered in the Netherlands (in January), while the highest, 12.9 per cent was that in Spain.

In Malta, the latest statistics available from the Employment and Training Corporation (ETC), show that in December 2001, the number of registered unemployed stood at 7,433.

This amounted to 5.1 per cent of the labour supply. The majority of the unemployed, or 82.9 per cent were males while the remainder, 17.1 per cent were females.

In March 2002, the registered unemployed dropped by 216 or 2.7 per cent over the previous month and reached 7,725.

According to the fourth Labour Force Survey (LFS) carried out between November 26 and December 2, 2001 by the National Statistics Office, the unemployment rate in December 2001 stood at 6.5 per cent. The majority or 53.7 per cent of unemployed persons were between 15 and 24 years old. The definitions and criteria used in this LFS match international methodologies used by the ILO. The methodology used in the LFS is different from that employed by the ETC.