Italy May jobless rate jumps to 6.5% but 80,000 jobs created in month

Italy's unemployment rate rose sharply to 6.5 per cent in May from an upwardly revised 6.1 percent in April, national statistics bureau ISTAT reported on Wednesday, but a net 80,000 jobs were created during the month.

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A Reuters survey of nine analysts had forecast a May jobless rate of 6.0 per cent.

April’s rate had been previously reported at 5.9 per cent.

The reason for the jump in the unemployment rate was that a large number of previously inactive people entered the labour market in May to look for work, ISTAT said. The 6.5 per cent jobless rate was the highest since June last year.

The youth unemployment rate, measuring job-seekers between 15 and 24 years old, rose to 21.6 per cent from 19.9 per cent.

In the March-to-May period, employment in the eurozone's third largest economy was up by 93,000, or 0.4 per cent, compared with the previous three months, ISTAT said.

In May, there were 408,000 more people in work than in the same month last year, an increase of 1.7 per cent.

The employment rate, one of the lowest in the Eurozone, edged up to 62.9 per cent from 62.8 per cent the month before, while the so-called “inactivity rate”, measuring those neither working nor looking for work, fell to 32.6 per cent from a previous 33 per cent.

Italy's long-running increase in employment has come against a backdrop of weak economic growth and stagnant wages.