By Mucahithan Avcioglu
ISTANBUL - The euro area’s unemployment rate was down to 6.2% in December 2025, from 6.3% in November, Eurostat said on Friday.
The markets had expected the rate to stay unchanged at 6.3% in December.
Across the wider EU, the jobless rate held steady at 5.9% in December.
Eurostat estimated that 13.04 million people in the EU were unemployed in December, including 10.79 million in the eurozone.
Compared to November, the number of jobless decreased by 94,000 in the EU and by 61,000 in the euro area.
In December, about 2.86 million people age 25 and under were out of work across the EU, including 2.26 million in the eurozone. The youth jobless rate reached 14.7% in the EU, down from 14.9% a month earlier, while it fell to 14.3% in the euro area.
Finland had the highest overall unemployment rate at 10.2%. Czechia saw the lowest rate at 3.1% in December.
The euro area, also referred to as EA20, is made up of EU member states that use the bloc’s single currency, the euro.