Unemployment in the euro zone was unchanged at 8.8 per cent in January for the 11th month in a row, the European Union statistics office said today.
The data, in line with analysts' expectations, compares with jobless levels of 5.7 per cent in the United States and 5.0 per cent in Japan in January.
A Eurostat official said euro zone unemployment had been flat at 8.8 per cent since March 2003. In January last year the jobless rate stood at 8.7 per cent in the 12-nation bloc.
In the wider European Union, unemployment was 8 per cent in January, unchanged from December and only just above the 7.9 per cent of a year earlier.
With unemployment running at 3.9 per cent, Luxembourg had the lowest jobless level in the 15-nation EU. Spain's 11.2 per cent remained the region's highest.
The top two euro zone economies Germany and France had jobless rates of 9.2 per cent and 9.5 per cent, respectively.