Eurozone unemployment drops to record low in March

The eurozone unemployment dropped to a record low in March, the European Union's statistics bureau Eurostat said Wednesday.

The jobless rate in the eurozone stood at 7.2 percent in March, down from 7.3 percent in the previous month and 8.2 percent in March 2006. It was the lowest level since the indicator was introduced in 1993.

Among the 13 member states which use the euro, the Netherlands recorded the lowest unemployment, with 3.4 percent.

Both Germany and France, the two largest economies in the bloc, saw improvement on the labor market. The jobless rate in Germany declined from 7.1 percent in February to 7.0 percent in March, and in France from 8.8 percent to 8.7 percent.

In the 27-nation EU, unemployment in March remained unchanged with the revised figure of the previous month, which was 7.3 percent.

The Eurostat estimated that there were 17 million people unemployed in the EU in March, among which 10.8 million were in the eurozone.

As a comparison, the jobless rate in the United States was 4.4 percent in March 2007, and the Japanese rate was 4.0 percent.

Source: Xinhua