Latest figures from EU statistics office Eurostat published today (October 31 ) show that unemployment in Romania held steady in September at 7.1 percent. The seasonally adjusted unemployment figures are the same as in August this year and 0.6 percent lower than in September 2011, when 7.7 percent of Romanians were looking for work.

The unemployment rate fell gradually in Romania until April this year, when it reached 7.1 percent. Since then it has remained fairly steady, with a blip to 7.3 percent in June before dropping to 7.0 percent in July. The unemployment rate has been consistently higher among men than women over the last year in Romania, but a slight narrowing trend has been seen. In September the gap in unemployment rate closed further to within 1 percent – 7.6 percent among men and 6.6 percent among women.

Looking at the EU as a whole, the increase in average rate of unemployment in the EU 27 and the eurozone appears to be steadying. Eurozone unemployment climbed 0.1 percent to 11.6 percent, while the figure for the EU 27 remained unchanged at 10.6 percent. Towards the end of last year and at the beginning of 2012, the unemployment rate was ticking up by 0.1 percent a month consistently in the EU 27 and the eurozone. That trend appears to have halted or at least slowed down considerably in the last three to four months.

State by state, the lowest unemployment rates were seen in Austria (4.4 percent), Germany and the Netherlands (both 5.4 percent). Meanwhile the highest remains Spain, reaching a whopping 25.8 percent unemployment rate in September. The latest figures for Greece are from July, when the rate was 25.1 percent, and it seems safe to assume that no radical improvement has occurred since then.

Eurostat uses a different methodology to Romania's Statistics Institute (INS) and the Eurostat figures are generally around 2 percentage points higher.

Liam Lever, liam@romania-insider.com