Eurozone at 11.4 percent unemployment

• Tweet

BRUSSELS, Oct. 1 (UPI) -- The unemployment rate in the 17-member eurozone rose to a record in June, to a figure matched in July and August, Eurostat said Monday.

The official data office for the European Union revised June and July's unemployment rates from 11.3 percent to 11.4 percent and said that rate was unchanged in August for the 17 nations that share the euro as currency.

For the European Union as a whole, including 10 additional countries that have not adopted the common currency, the unemployment rate stood at 10.5 percent in August.

The agency said 25.466 million men and women in the EU, including 18.196 million in the eurozone, were unemployed in August, an increase over July of 49,000 in the EU and 34,000 in the eurozone.

The unemployment rate in rose in 20 EU countries from July to August, dropping in six and holding unchanged in Britain.

The largest decline was in Estonia, where the unemployment rate fell from 13.2 percent to 10.1 percent from the second quarter of 2011 to the second quarter of 2012.

In Lithuania, the unemployment rate fell from 15 percent to 12.9 percent, year-to-year. In Latvia, it fell from 17 percent to 15.9 percent in the same period.

Going the other way, the biggest increase was in Greece, where unemployment rose from 17.2 percent to 24.4 percent. In Cyprus, the rate rose from 8 percent to 11.7 percent. In Portugal it rose from 12.7 percent to 15.9 percent. In Spain, the unemployment rate reached 25.1 percent, the highest in the region, from 22 percent.

The unemployment rate in Italy, the region's third largest economy, the unemployment rate rose from 8.4 percent to 10.7 percent. In France, the second largest, the rate rose from 9.6 percent to 10.6 percent. In Germany, Europe's largest economy, the unemployment rate fell from 5.8 percent to 5.5 percent from August 2011 to August 2012.