Eurozone Unemployment Near 10%

For the month of January, unemployment in the 16 countries that use the euro held steady at 9.9% for the third month running, Manufacturing.Net reports. In its first estimate for the month, the European Union’s (EU) statistics office said around 15.7 million people were unemployed in the eurozone, up 136,000 on the previous month.

On an annual basis, unemployment has risen by 2.2 million in the eurozone. Within the eurozone, the Netherlands had the lowest unemployment rate at 4.2% while the highest was in Spain, where 18.8% of the available labor force was unemployed.

In the 27-country EU, which includes non-euro members such as Britain, the unemployment rate was 9.5% in January for the second month running.

The highest unemployment rate in the EU is Latvia’s 22.9%.