| Consensus | Consensus Range | Actual | Previous | |
| Rate | 6.3% | 6.3% to 6.3% | 6.2% | 6.3% |
Highlights
Labour market conditions in the euro area showed gradual improvement at the end of 2025, reinforcing signs of economic stabilisation. The unemployment rate declined to 6.2 percent in December, down from 6.3 percent in both the previous month and a year earlier, reflecting continued though modest job creation. In absolute terms, 10.8 million people remained unemployed, but the monthly fall of 61,000 indicates a steady easing of labour market pressures.
Youth unemployment also improved, with the rate edging down to 14.3 percent and the number of unemployed young people falling to 2.26 million. The year-over-year reduction of 31,000 suggests incremental progress in integrating younger workers, although youth joblessness remains more than double the overall rate, pointing to persistent structural challenges.
Gender disparities remained limited, with unemployment stable at 6.4 percent for women and 6.1 percent for men, signalling broadly balanced labour market outcomes. Overall, the latest update suggests a labour market that is resilient but cautious, improving at a slow pace consistent with the euro area's subdued growth environment rather than a strong cyclical upswing. These updates take the RPI to 28 and the RPI-P to 33, meaning that economic activities are outperforming expectations in the euro area.
Definition
The unemployment rate measures the number of unemployed as a percentage of the labor force.
Description
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.