Eurozone unemployment has dropped to its lowest level in five long years.
The rate eased to 10% in September, the same as it had been in August this year, and an improvement over the 10.6% rate in September last year.
The EU’s statistics agency says it believes this means that nearly 16.2 million people in the 19 nation euro bloc, and almost 20.8 million in all the EU countries, are jobless.
In Portugal the rate dipped to 10.8% in September this year, down from 12.4% at the same time last year. Currently there are 636,000 people registered as unemployed.
Youth unemployment also tumbled during that time from 32% to 26.5% today, with 118,000 Portuguese young people without work. The average rate in the euro area was 20.3%, leaving Portugal with a greater percentage.
Only Greece, Spain and Italy retained greater levels of youth unemployment than Portugal.
Overall employment throughout the eurozone saw only six countries above the 10% average.
Greece (23.2%), Spain (19.3%), Cyprus (12%), Italy (11.8%), Portugal (10.8%) and France (10.2%).
There is probably no good news in these statistics; while Portugal has dropped from having the third highest rate to the fifth highest, this has been at the expense of unemployment remaining high or even increasing in other countries, such as Italy.
Lowest unemployment rates were observed in Germany (4% overall and 6.8% for their young workers).
Outside the zone, the rate in the UK was 4.9% as of July 2016, the month for which most recent statistics are available.
