Eurozone unemployment held steady in May for the second month in a row, according to Eurostat. The EU statistics office reported today that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate came in at 8.8pc in May, unchanged from the previous month and in line with expectations. The May unemployment figure marks a jump from 8.3pc for the same period a year earlier.
Ireland had one of the lowest jobless rates, at 4.6pc, behind Austria's 4.3pc and the Netherlands 3.9pc. The highest rates were in Spain, at 11.3pc, followed by Germany, 9.4pc, and Finland, 9.0pc. Eurostat estimated that in May 2003 12.3 million men and women were unemployed in the eurozone and 14.3 million in the EU15.// www.fxcentre.com