Drop in of joblessness as unemployment in EU falls 15%

This means that three million people across the EU found work, between those two periods.

However, 13.3m people remain unemployed in the EU.

EuroStat is the statistical office of the European Union.

Their latest figures also show that 169.7m people were in paid employment across all member states.

Overall, the trends show a move towards greater levels of employment and a continual decrease in unemployment.

“In the EU, the proportion of persons moving from unemployment to employment from the fourth quarter 2015 to the first quarter of 2016 increased by 1.6 percentage point (pp) compared with the flows between the same two quarters of 2014/2015, while the share of those remaining unemployed decreased by 2.6 pp,” reads the report.

From an Irish perspective, we were one of the best- performing countries when it came to the number of people moving from unemployment into employment.

Ireland had a 2.5 percentage point increase in the amount of people finding work in the first quarter of 2016, compared with the last quarter of 2015.

This was one of the highest increases across the 26 member states that were measured.

Spain recorded a 2.6 percentage point increase in people moving into employment, Cyprus had a rise of 2.8%, and Slovakia had one of 3.3%. The Czech Republic had the best outcome of all states measured, with a 4.4 percentage point jump in employment figures between quarter one of 2016 and the last quarter of 2015.

Of all the countries, Latvia performed the worst, where there was a 7.8 percentage point drop in people finding work.

In another EuroStat report relating to the summer of 2016, it shows that high unemployment still persists in Greece and Spain.

“Among the member states, the lowest unemployment rates in June 2016 were recorded in Malta (4.0%), the Czech Republic (4.1%), and Germany (4.2%).

“The highest rates have been observed in Greece (23.3% in April 2016) and Spain (19.9%),” reads the report.

This report included seasonally adjusted figures.

It also showed how youth unemployment had decreased between the summer of 2016 and the summer of 2015.

In June 2016, just over four million young people (under the age of 25) were unemployed in the 28 member states, with 2.9m of these living in the euro area.

When you compare this figure with June 2015, it shows that youth unemployment fell by 492,000 people in all member states.

Percentage wise, there was 18.5% youth unemployment across the member states in June 2016, compared with 20.6% for the same time last year.

The countries with the lowest level of youth unemployment in June 2016, were Malta (6.9%) and Germany (7.2%) and highest levels of youth unemployment were registered in Greece (47.4% in April 2016) and Spain (45.8%).

Youth unemployment in Europe is double that of rates for people aged 25 and up.