In May 2018, for the seventh month running, Croatia was among the EU member states with the largest unemployment decreases on the year, Eurostat said on Monday.

The EU28 unemployment rate was 7.0 percent, stable compared to April 2018 and down from 7.7 percent in May 2017.
This is the lowest rate recorded in the EU28 since August 2008.

Eurostat estimated that 17.207 million people in the EU28 were unemployed in May 2018. Compared with April 2018, there were 154,000 fewer unemployed people, and compared with May 2017, unemployment fell by 1.828 million.

Among the member states, the lowest unemployment rates in May 2018 were recorded in the Czech Republic (2.3 percent) and Germany (3.4 percent), while the highest were observed in Greece (20.1 percent in March 2018) and Spain (15.8 percent).

In Croatia, seasonally-adjusted unemployment in May 2018 fell to 8.9 percent from 9.1 percent in April. There were 162,000 jobless, 2,000 fewer than in April 2018 and 43,000 fewer than in May 2017.

For the seventh month running, Croatia was among the EU countries with the largest annual unemployment decreases, by 2.4 percentage points.

Apart from Croatia the largest decreases compared to a year ago were registered in Cyprus (from 11.4 percent to 8.4 percent), Greece (from 22.1 percent to 20.1 percent between March 2017 and March 2018) and Portugal (from 9.2 percent to 7.3 percent).

In May 2018, the youth unemployment rate was 15.1 percent in the EU28, compared with 17.2 percent in May 2017, with 3.377 million persons under 25 years of age unemployed. Compared with May 2017, youth unemployment decreased by 519,000.

The lowest rates were observed in Malta (4.8 percent), Germany (6.1 percent), Estonia (6.8 percent in April 2018) and the Netherlands (6.9 percent), while the highest were recorded in the southern EU members, Greece (43.2 percent in March 2018), Spain (33.8 percent), and Italy (31.9 percent).

Croatia does not publish monthly data on youth unemployment. The last available data show that in the first quarter of 2018, youth unemployment was 23.6 percent, with 37,000 persons under 25 out of work.

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