A major economy in the European Union has seen a rise in the unemployment rate.
In Italy, the number of people seeking unemployment benefits rose for the first time in the past half year in July.
After going down for six months in a row, Italy’s unemployment rate jumped to 7.6% in July, which was a surprise; this came after six months of going down.
Istat said that about 73,000 jobs were lost last month and that the jobless rate increased for the first time since February.
Reuters polled economists, saying the unemployment rate would decrease to 7.4%. In the same month the year before, the rate was 8%.
This year, there are 362,000 more jobs in the Eurozone’s third-biggest economy than in July 2022, a 1.6% increase.
Even though the numbers for July were not very good, the job rate in Italy went up by 0.5% in the three months before July compared to February to April.
The data shows that the overall job rate of 61.3% is one of the lowest in the euro area, and the unemployment rate for young people between the ages of 15 and 24 dropped from 22.2% in June to 22.1% in July.
Preliminary figures also showed that Italy’s GDP fell by 0.3% from April to June in the previous quarter. The following quarters are also expected to be slow, partly because of the recent increases in key interest rates.
The government says that GDP will grow by 1% this year, much less than the 3.7% growth seen in 2022.
