Eurozone unemployment fell in Feb, before coronavirus measures

Unemployment in the eurozone fell to a 12-year low in February, the month before coronavirus containment measures began to be introduced widely across Europe.

The jobless rate was 7.3 percent in the 19 countries sharing the eurozone, the lowest level since March 2008, EU statistics office Eurostat said on Wednesday.

Economists polled by Reuters had expected the rate to be unchanged from the 7.4 percent of January.

In the 27-member European Union unemployment was 6.5 percent of the workforce, unchanged from January and so holding at the low est rate recorded since the start of monthly data in February 2000.

Eurostat estimated that 12.047 million people in the euro area and 13.984 million people in the wider EU were unemployed in February, declines of respectively 88,000 and 62,000 respectively.

Unemployment ranged from 2.0 percent in the Czech Republic and 2.9 percent in the Netherlands and Poland to 13.6 percent in Spain and 16.3 percent in Greece.

Global job losses from the coronavirus crisis could far exceed the 25 million estimated recently by the International Labour Organization (ILO), United Nations officials have said , as United States jobless claims surged to record levels, starkly demonstrating the scale of the economic disaster.