Eurozone unemployment rate stays at 10.0% in July

BRUSSELS, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Unemployment rate in the 17-member eurozone lingered at 10.0 percent in July, the same as in June, the European Union's (EU) statistical bureau Eurostat said on Wednesday, amid growing fears over an economic slowdown.

The Eurostat estimated that close to 16 million people were jobless in July in the euro area, 61,000 more than in the previous month.

Year on year, the eurozone jobless rate was 0.2 points down from July, 2010, a possible sign of the eurozone labor market's stabilizing trend.

For the wider 27-nation EU, the jobless rate in July also remained unchanged from 9.5 percent in the previous month, with 18,000 more joining the queue for jobs which now totaled close to 23 million.

Among the member states, the lowest unemployment rate was recorded in the Austria, where only 3.7 percent of the population were without a job. Spain again registered the highest jobless rate with a towering 21.2 percent.

Youth under 25 years continue to be the worst hit group in the employment market, with unemployment rate of eurozone youth standing at 20.5 percent and 20.7 percent in the EU.

The unemployment situation in Europe was also worse than that in the United States and Japan, which stood at 9.1 percent and 4.6 percent respectively in July.

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