Unemployment falls again, Romania's rate now 5th lowest in the EU

The latest European figures show that unemployment fell again in December 2012 in Romania. The unemployment rate dropped by 0.2 percentage points month-on-month, to 6.5 percent in Romania, according to EU statistics office Eurostat's figures, published February 1. This was the fourth consecutive monthly fall and since December 2011, the local unemployment rate has dropped by 1 percentage point.

At a European level, the rate for both the eurozone and the EU27 remained constant, at 11.7 percent and 10.7 percent respectively. In December 2012, only four EU countries had lower unemployment rates than Romania: Austria (4.3 percent), Germany and Luxembourg (5.3 percent) and The Netherlands (5.8 percent). Compared to December 2011, unemployment had fallen in only seven EU states and had risen in the other 20. The situation in Greece and Spain remains dire; both countries had more than 25 percent unemployment, however there was a slight reduction in Spain, 26.2 percent in November to 26.1 percent in December 2012. The next highest rate was in Portugal – 16.6 percent – and was below 15 percent everywhere else. editor@romania-insider.com photo source: sxc.hu