unemployment drops to 7% of the active population, its lowest level since 1998

An improvement for European employment. The unemployment rate in the euro zone reached its lowest level in twenty-four years in December, at 7% of the working population, down 0.1 point compared to November, Eurostat announced on Tuesday 1 February.

Euro area #unemployment at 7.0% in December, EU at 6.4% https://t.co/mz6nBxGYHf pic.twitter.com/BoG6hcw5l6

— EU_Eurostat (@EU_Eurostat) February 1, 2022

The rebound of the European economy since the spring of 2021, after the shock linked to the Covid-19 pandemic, has led to an upturn in the labor market, to the point of causing unemployment to fall to the lowest level since April 1998, the start of the series compiled by the european statistics office. For the whole of the European Union, unemployment also reached a historic low, at 6.4%, the lowest figure since the start of this series in January 2000.

Some 13.61 million men and women were unemployed in the EU in December, including 11.48 million in the euro area. The improvement is very clear over one year. Compared to December 2020, the number of unemployed fell by 2.2 million people in the EU and by 1.83 million in the euro area.