Seasonally adjusted employment in the 12-nation euro zone rose by 0.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2006, the European Union's statistics bureau Eurostat said on Wednesday.

According to the first estimates by Eurostat, the employed population in the euro zone increased by 423,000 during the last three months of 2006 against the previous quarter.

Compared to the same quarter of the previous year, employment grew by 1.6 percent.

The growth rate was 0.3 percent quarter-on-quarter and 1.5 percent year-on-year in the third quarter of 2006.

Over the whole of 2006, employment rose by 1.4 percent in the euro zone, with nearly two million jobs added.

For the 25-nation European Union (EU), the number of persons employed grew by 0.3 percent during the fourth quarter of last year.

The growth rate was 1.6 percent on a yearly basis. Over the whole of 2006, employment increased by 1.5 percent in the EU.

In the fourth quarter of 2006, 206.7 million men and women were employed in the EU, of which 140.0 million were in the euro zone, Eurostat estimated.

Source: Xinhua