The unemployment rate in the eurozone reached its lowest historical level in January, at 6.8% of the active population, a decrease of 0.2 percentage points from the previous month, Eurostat announced on Thursday.
Year-on-year, in January, unemployment decreased by 1.4 percentage points in the eurozone and by 1.3 percentage points in the European Union.
In December, this indicator had already fallen to its lowest since April 1998, the date when the European statistics office began compiling this series.
Some 13.35 million men and women still remained without employment in the EU, including 11.23 million in the eurozone, according to Eurostat.
The labor market is benefiting from the strong rebound of the European economy since spring 2021, after the historic recession linked to the Covid-19 pandemic. For the whole of the EU, unemployment also reached a historic low, at 6.2% in January.
The European economy, driven by France and Italy, overcame last year’s pandemic impact, recording a record growth. The gross domestic product (GDP) of the eurozone increased by 5.2% in 2021, as in the entire EU.
And the economic indicators remained positive for the first months of the year, despite restrictions imposed by the new wave of infections from the Omicron variant.
The war in Ukraine, which could hinder activity, casts a shadow on the outlook for the coming months. However, the European Commission does not believe, at this stage, that the economy is threatened with recession.
