BRUSSELS, July 30 (Xinhua) -- The unemployment in the European Union (EU) and the euro area continued to climb in June as many countries started to phase out COVID-19 containment measures, showed the statistics from the Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, issued on Thursday.
The figures showed that June's unemployment across the eurozone increased to 7.8 percent from May's 7.7 percent. The unemployment rate in the whole EU increased to 7.1 percent from 7 percent in May.
Eurostat estimated that just over 15 million people in the EU and around 12.7 million in the euro area were unemployed in June. Compared with May's, the number of unemployed increased by 281,000 in the EU and by 203,000 in the euro area.
A breakdown of the statistics showed that almost three million of those unemployed in the EU were young persons under the age of 25, and 2.36 million were in the euro area. In June 2020, the youth unemployment rate stood at 16.8 percent in the EU and 17 percent in the euro area, up from 16.2 percent and 16.5 percent respectively in the previous month.
The analysis by gender showed the unemployment rate for women in June stood at 7.5 percent in the EU, up from 7.3 percent in May, and that for men was 6.7 percent in June, up from 6.6 percent in May.
In the euro area, the unemployment rate for women increased from 8.1 percent in May to 8.3 percent in June while it increased from 7.3 percent to 7.4 percent for men.
Eurostat said the COVID-19 confinement measures applied since March 2020 triggered a sharp increase in the number of claims for unemployment benefits across the EU. At the same time, a significant part of those who had registered in unemployment agencies were no longer actively looking for a job. Enditem
