Portuguese unemployment decreases to 6.8% in 2018, one of the best performances at EU level
On the year-on-year comparison, Portugal's performance in employment has placed the country amongst those at EU level which have registered the greatest fall, going from 8.8% in 2017 to 6.8% in 2018.
Portugal is among the countries at EU level which have registered the highest year-on-year decrease in unemployment, moving from 8.8% in August 2017 to 6.8% in August 2018. According to the data released by Eurostat this Monday, unemployment decreased to 8.1% n the Eurozone and to 6.8% in the EU, in August. European unemployment hasn’t been this low since 2008.
Last month, unemployment in the euro area backed down to 8.1%, in comparison to the 8.2% registered in July. It registered a year-on-year 0.9 percentage points decrease, “the lowest rate registered in the Eurozone since November 2008” according to the Eurostat.
Regarding the EU28, the unemployment fell to 6.8% in August, a steady evolution if compared to the previous month, whereas in relation to the same period last year it has significantly fallen, from 7.5%.
Last month the Czech Republic (2.5%), Germany and Poland (both with 3.4%) registered the lowest unemployment rates in Europe. On the other hand, Greece (19.1% in June) and Spain (15.2%) have the highest unemployment rates.
In terms of the year-on-year evolution, Cyprus had the best performance (going from 10.5% to 7.5%), followed by Croatia (10.9% to 8.5%), Greece (21.3% to 19.1%) and Portugal (8.8% to 6.8%).
The data from Eurostat are in line with the estimates from the Portuguese National Statistics Institute (INE). According to INE, these results are the lowest since 2002.