According to the data released by the European Statistical Office Eurostat, the average unemployment rate registered in the Euro area reached 10.1% rate in November 2010, a percentage slightly higher than the average of the European Union as a whole, where the rate was 9.6%.

Data on the evolution of unemployment rate in the Euro are in November 2010 showed that the situation remained stable in relation to the previous month, since it was 10.1% in both months. In annual terms, these data show a two-tenths increase over the same month in the previous year when in remained at 9.9%.

For the European Union as a whole, unemployment rate was slightly below the Euro area average, reaching 9.6% in November 2010. These values also remained stable compared to the previous month, and reflected the same two-tenths increased with respect to the EU average for the same month in 2009.

According to these values, the European Statistics Office (Eurostat) estimates that 23,248 million men and women were unemployed in November 2010, of which 15,924 are in the Euro zone.

The Netherlands continued to show the lowest unemployment rate of 4.4%, followed by Luxembourg with 4.8% and Austria with 5.1%, while the highest rate is still registered in Spain reaching 20.6%, followed by Lithuania with 18.3% in the third quarter of 2010 and Latvia with 18.2%.

Female and youth unemployment are still the most hitted sectors

Again, the female unemployment rate recorded a higher increase than for men in both the Euro area and the European Union as a whole, since it passed from 9.9% to 10.2% between October and November 2010 and from 9.2% to 9.6%, respectively. In the case of male unemployment, it increased by a tenth in the Euro zone reaching 9.9% and remained stable at 9.6% in the entire European Union.

Alongside female unemployment, youth unemployment is one more of the key challenges for the Europe 2020 Strategy for employment and growth. In this case, young people under 25 continue to be one of the sectors of the population most affected by unemployment, since the rate reached 20.7% in the Euro area in November 2010 and 21% in EU27. Again, the Netherlands recorded the lowest rate for youth unemployment, which in this case was followed by Germany and Austria. Spain is also the country with highest youth unemployment, with 43.6% of young people under 25 are unemployed, followed by Slovakia and Lithuania.