Unemployment in February unchanged from previous month

The seasonally adjusted monthly unemployment rate has stayed steady, with the latest figures for February showing a 4.4 per cent unemployment rate, at par with the previous month.

This represents a total of 11,930 unemployed individuals.

A report released today by the National Statistics Office (NSO) reveals that males are more likely to suffer unemployment than females, with the former having a 4.5 per cent unemployment rate, compared to 4.2 per cent for the latter.

For males, this represents a 0.1 per cent increase in the unemployment rate over January, while the female rate went down by 0.1 per cent.

Youths between the ages of 15 and 24 are by far more likely to be unemployed than anyone else, with a youth unemployment rate of 10 per cent. The rate for persons between 25 and 74 stood at 3.7 per cent.

The 4.4 per cent unemployment rate in February 2021 is 0.9 percentage points higher than during the same period of 2020.

A chart released in the report shows how the unemployment rate has been in steady decline since 2013, with only the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuring economic challenges reversing the trend.