These figures are published by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.
Among the Member States, the lowest unemployment rates were recorded in Austria (4.0%), the Netherlands (4.1%) and Luxembourg (4.5%), and the highest in Spain (21.0%), Lithuania (16.3% in the first quarter of 2011) and Latvia (16.2% in the first quarter of 2011).
Compared with a year ago, the unemployment rate fell in nineteen Member States, increased in seven and remained stable in Luxembourg. The largest falls were observed in Estonia (18.8% to 13.8% between the first quarters of 2010 and 2011), Latvia (19.9% to 16.2% between the first quarters of 2010 and 2011) and Hungary (11.3% to 9.9%). The highest increases were registered in Greece (11.0% to 15.0% between the first quarters of 2010 and 2011), Bulgaria (10.1% to 11.4%), Cyprus (6.5% to 7.6%) and Slovenia (7.3% to 8.4%).
Between June 2010 and June 2011, the unemployment rate for males fell from 10.0% to 9.6% in the euro area and from 9.7% to 9.2% in the EU27. The female unemployment rate was unchanged at 10.3% in the euro area and decreased from 9.6% to 9.5% in the EU27.
In June 2011, the youth unemployment rate (under-25s) was 20.3% in the euro area and 20.5% in the EU27. In June 2010 it was 20.9% and 21.0% respectively. The lowest rates were observed in the Netherlands (7.1%), Austria (8.2%) and Germany (9.1%) and the highest in Spain (45.7%), Greece (38.5% in the first quarter of 2011), Slovakia (33.3%) and Lithuania (32.6% in the first quarter of 2011).
In June 2011, the unemployment rate was 9.2% in the USA. In May 2011, it was 4.5% in Japan.
