Unemployment drops in EU

The euro area unemployment rate was 11.8% last March, down from 12% in March 2013. The EU unemployment rate was 10.5% last March, down from 10.9% in March 2013. These figures were released Friday by by Eurostat, the EU statistical office. Eurostat estimated that 25.699 million men and women in the EU, of whom 18.913 million were in the euro area, were unemployed in March. Compared with March 2013, unemployment decreased by 929,000 in the EU and by 316,000 in the euro area. Among the EU Member States, the lowest unemployment rates were recorded in Austria (4.9%), Germany (5.1%) and Luxembourg (6.1%), and the highest in Greece (26.7%) and Spain (25.3%). Compared with a year ago, the unemployment rate increased in ten EU Member States, remained stable in three, and fell in fifteen.