Joblessness increased a further 41,000 in June following a marginally smaller revised 34,000 gain in May. The latest rise was steep enough to lift the unemployment rate off the previous period's record equalling low of 6.4 percent to 6.5 percent. This matched both the level last seen in March and also the market consensus.

However, amongst the larger four Eurozone countries, the uptick in the headline rate was only mirrored in Italy (7.0 percent after 6.9 percent). Both France (7.4 percent) and Germany (3.4 percent) saw no change while Spain (11.5 percent after 11.6 percent) posted a fresh decline.

Tentative signs of a cooling in the region's labour market will be well received by the ECB as it waits for fresh data on wage developments ahead of September's policy announcement. Even so, at 6.5 percent the June jobless rate still points to little spare capacity and argues against a rapid rundown in key interest rates. Today's update puts the Eurozone RPI at 11, signalling a modest degree of overall economic outperformance but, with the RPI-P at minus 3, only due to surprisingly firm prices.

Consensus for June's unemployment rate is an incremental rise to 6.5 percent versus May and April's record low, both at 6.4 percent. The Eurozone labour market has been very tight.

The unemployment rate measures the number of unemployed as a percentage of the labor force.

Unemployment data are closely monitored by the financial markets. These data give a comprehensive report on the state of the economy and its future direction. A rising unemployment rate can be a warning sign of hard times while a low rate can be a warning of inflation as wages are bid up to attract labor.

Unemployment data are expressed in both a numerical value and as a percentage of the labor force. Generally, the definition of those unemployed follows that of the International Labour Organisation (ILO). It states that an unemployed person is one between the ages of 15 to 74 years of age who was not employed during the reference week, had actively sought work during the past four weeks and was ready to begin working immediately or within two weeks. The unemployment rate is the percentage of unemployed persons over the total number of active persons in the labor market. Active persons are those who are either employed or unemployed.

Eurostat provides an unemployment rate for each EU country as well as for the EMU and EU as a whole. It should be noted that the unemployment rate for a country will frequently differ with that reported by the national statistics agency. That is because of the varying interpretations of the ILO definition by member states and Eurostat.