Investing.com - The euro zone’s unemployment rate in June fell to the lowest level since September 2012, fuelling optimism over the region’s economic outlook, official data showed on Thursday.
In a report, Eurostat said that the euro zone’s unemployment rate ticked down to a seasonally adjusted 11.5% last month from 11.6% in May. Analysts had expected the jobless rate to hold steady at 11.6% in June.
The data showed that among the member states, the lowest unemployment rates were recorded in Austria (5%), Germany (5.1%) and Malta (5.6%), and the highest in Greece (27.3% in April 2014) and Spain (24.5%).
Following the release of the data, the euro held on to losses against the U.S. dollar, with EUR/USD shedding 0.04% to trade at 1.3391.
Meanwhile, European stock markets remained lower. The DJ Euro Stoxx 50 fell 0.95%, France’s CAC 40 slumped 0.7%, Germany's DAX lost 1%, while London’s FTSE 100 dipped 0.25%.