Eurozone jobless rate remains high at 11.2 pct in June

The euro area's unemployment rate remained high at 11.2 percent in June, the statistics office of the European Union (EU) said Tuesday.

The rate was unchanged from that of May, but was higher than a year earlier when the figure stood at 10 percent.

For the wider 27-member EU, the unemployment rate was 10.4 percent in June, the same with the previous month, Eurostat said in a statement.

Eurostat estimated that about 25.1 million people in the EU, of whom 17.8 million were in the euro area, were unemployed in June. Compared with May 2012, the number of persons unemployed increased by 127,000 in the EU and by 123,000 in the euro area.

The highest unemployment rates were registered in Spain, at 24.8 percent, and Greece, at 22.5 percent, while the lowest figures were recorded in Austria, at 4.5 percent, the Netherlands, at 5.1 percent, and Germany and Luxembourg, both at 5.4 percent.

In June, about 5.47 million people under 25 were unemployed in the EU, of whom about 3.36 million were in the euro area. The figures brought the youth unemployment rate to 22.6 percent in the EU and 22.4 percent in the Eurozone, Eurostat said.