Unemployment in the euro zone was unchanged at 8.8 percent in January for the 11th month in a row, the European Union statistics office said on Tuesday, presenting data in line with analysts' expectations. The data compares with jobless levels of 5.7 percent in the United States and 5.0 percent in Japan in January. A Eurostat official said euro zone unemployment had been flat at 8.8 percent since March 2003. In January last year the jobless rate stood at 8.7 percent in the 12-nation bloc.
In the wider European Union, unemployment was 8.0 percent in January, unchanged from December and only just above the 7.9 percent of a year earlier. With unemployment running at 3.9 percent, Luxembourg had the lowest jobless level in the 15-nation EU. Spain's 11.2 percent remained the region's highest. The top two euro zone economies Germany and France had jobless rates of 9.2 percent and 9.5 percent respectively.///