The unemployment rate in the euro zone reached its historic low in March, at 6.8% of the working population, down 0.1 points from the previous month, Eurostat announced on Tuesday.
The February rate, which was initially announced at 6.8%, was revised upwards to 6.9%. Since December, this indicator has been at its lowest since the European statistics office began compiling this series in April 1998.
For the whole of the European Union, unemployment also reached a historic low, at 6.2% in March.
The labor market has benefited from the strong rebound in the European economy that began in the spring of 2021, following the historic recession linked to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Over one year, in March, unemployment fell by 1.4 points in the euro zone and by 1.3 points in the EU.
The improvement was even more marked among young people. The unemployment rate for people under 25 fell by 4.5 points compared to March 2021 in the euro zone to reach 13.9%, the same rate as in the EU.
However, some 13.37 million men and women remained unemployed among the 27 member countries, including 11.27 million in the 19 countries sharing the single currency.
The war in Ukraine, which is already beginning to penalize activity, casts a shadow over the outlook for the coming months, as growth prospects in Europe have been revised drastically downwards while inflation is soaring.
Eurozone Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth slowed to 0.2% from January to March, compared to the previous quarter. For the whole of 2022, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) lowered its growth forecast to 2.8%, once morest 3.9% expected until then. The European Commission is due to announce its own figures on May 16.
Among EU member countries, the highest unemployment rates in March were recorded in Spain (13.5%), Greece (12.9%) and Italy (8.3%).
In France, 7.4% of the active population was unemployed, according to harmonized data from Eurostat.
The Czech Republic (2.3%), Germany (2.9%), Malta (3%) and Poland (3%) had the lowest unemployment rates.
