February unemployment in EU and euro zone stable, down in Croatia

The unemployment rate in the EU27, measured by the methodology of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), was 7.5%, Eurostat said, revising its estimate for January up.

There were no changes in the euro area either, where unemployment remained at 8.3%, after the estimate for January was revised up.

In February 2020 unemployment in the EU was 6.5% and in the euro area it was 7.3%.

A total of 15.953 million people were out of work in the EU in February this year, including 13.571 million who were out of work in the euro area. Compared to January, the number of job-seekers in the EU rose by 34,000 and in the euro area it went up by 48,000.

Compared with February 2020, the number of job-seekers in the EU rose by 1.922 million while the number of job-seekers in the euro area was 1.507 million higher.

Of the countries whose statistics were available to Eurostat, Spain had the highest unemployment rate, of 16.1%, followed by Italy (10.1%) and Lithuania (9.6%).

Croatia's unemployment rate dropped in February to 7.2% from a revised 7.7% in January, moving away from the average in the EU and euro area.

A total of 125,000 people were out of work in Croatia in February, 2,000 fewer than in January.

In February 2020 the unemployment rate in Croatia was 5.9% and there were 105,000 job-seekers.

Poland had the lowest unemployment rate in the EU, of 3.1%, followed by the Czech Republic, with 3.3%, and the Netherlands, with 3.6%.

Eurostat did not have statistics for Greece, Finland, Norway and Switzerland.

The youth unemployment rate in the age group under 25 dropped in the EU by 0.2 percentage points from a revised estimate for January, to 17.2%.

It also dropped slightly in the euro area, to 17.3%, from a revised 17.4% in January.

There were 2.967 million young unemployed people in the EU in February 2021, including 2.394 million in the euro area.

Compared to February 2020, their number grew by 230,000 in the EU and by 177,000 in the euro area.

The highest youth unemployment rate was reported by Spain, of 39.6%, while Germany had the lowest youth unemployment rate, of 6.1%.

In Q4 2020, Croatia had a youth unemployment rate of 21%.

In the period from October to December 2020, there were 30,000 young job-seekers in Croatia, 1,000 fewer than in the report published in early March 2020.