The unemployment rate in the EU and the euro area continued to decrease mildly in August and in Croatia it was around the euro area average, its lowest level since the start of the pandemic, shows a Eurostat report released on Thursday.

The unemployment rate in the EU dropped in August by 0.1 percentage points to 6.8%, the Eurostat report notes.

It dropped to 7.5% in the euro area.

According to Eurostat, there were 14.469 million people out of work in the EU in August, including 12.162 million in the euro area.

Compared to July, the number of job-seekers in the EU dropped by 224,000 and in the euro area it went down by 261,000. Compared to August 2020, the number of unemployed persons in the EU was down by 1.965 million and in the euro area it dropped by 1.861 million.

Croatia, Finland with similar unemployment rates

The highest unemployment rates in August were once again recorded by Spain and Greece, 14% and 13.2% respectively. They were the only EU countries with double-digit unemployment rates.

The unemployment rate in Croatia was 7.6%, a drop from 7.7% in July.

This was the country’s lowest unemployment rate since March 2020, when the coronavirus started to spread. In February 2020, before the pandemic, the unemployment rate was 6.5%. In August last year unemployment was 8.6%.

Finland had the most similar numbers to Croatia, with an unemployment rate of 7.8%, followed by Lithuania and Latvia with 7.2% and 7.1% respectively.

A total of 136,000 Croatians were out of work in August, 2,000 fewer than in July. Compared to August 2020, the number of job-seekers was down by 18,000.

The lowest unemployment rate was once again reported by the Czech Republic, 2.9%, followed by Malta and the Netherlands, with 3.2% each.

In the age group under 25 the unemployment rate in the EU in August was 0.2 percentage points lower than in July, at 16.2%.

In the euro area youth unemployment decreased by 0.3 percentage points to 16.4%.