March unemployment rate slightly up in Romania, still comfortably below EU average

Romania's unemployment rate reached 7.5 percent in March, up 0.4 percentage points from February and 0.5 percentage points higher than in March 2011, according to data from the country's Statistics Institute.

Romania had 735,000 unemployed people aged 15 to 74 in March this year, up from 706,000 in February and from 696,000 in March 2011. The rate of unemployment is 1.2 percentage points higher for men than for women. Most of the unemployed in Romania – 70 percent, are aged between 25 and 74. In the European Union, the average unemployment rate was of 10.2 percent in March, while the eurozone, it was of 10.9 percent. Among the Member States, the lowest unemployment rates were recorded in Austria (4 percent ), the Netherlands (5percent ), Luxembourg (5.2percent ) and Germany (5.6 percent ), while the highest was in Spain (24.1 percent ) and Greece (21.7 percent in January 2012). The full Eurostat report here. editor@romania-insider.com (photo source: Sxc.hu)