Eurozone Jobless Rate Rises Slightly

(RTTNews) - The euro area unemployment rate rose slightly in August but remained near record lows despite weaker economic activity.
The jobless rate climbed marginally to 6.3 percent in August from 6.2 percent in July, Eurostat said Thursday. The rate was forecast to remain unchanged at 6.2 percent.
The number of unemployed increased 11,000 from the previous month to 10.842 million in August. Compared to the last year, unemployment declined 15,000.
The youth unemployment rate remained unchanged at 14.0 percent in August. Youth unemployment decreased 4,000 from July. There were 2.22 million unemployed persons in August.
ING economist Bert Colijn said unemployment remained near all-time lows as the economy maintains a slow pace of growth amid significant uncertainty. Despite a small uptick in the unemployment rate, the labor market mainly shows resilience, the economist added. In the EU27, the overall unemployment rate held steady at 5.9 percent in August. However, the jobless rate among youth, aged below 25, rose to 14.6 percent from 14.4 percent a month ago.
The recent purchasing managers' survey showed that the euro area private sector employment was kept stable in September, ending a six-month sequence of job creation.
Staffing levels in the services sector continued to increase but at the weakest pace in seven months. Meanwhile, manufacturing employment extended the sequence of decline that began in June 2023, PMI survey showed.