AMSTERDAM (AP) - The number of unemployed people in the 18 eurozone countries declined fractionally in May, not enough to bring down the jobless rate, which remained at 11.6 percent compared with a month earlier.
The European Union's statistics office, Eurostat, said Tuesday the overall number of unemployed workers in the 18 countries that use the euro decreased by 28,000 from the previous month to 18.6 million.
The report continues a trend of very slight improvement in the number of unemployed this year as Europe's economy shows signs of recovering only slowly.
Divergence remains strong between the countries of northern and southern Europe: German unemployment was 5.1 percent, while Italy's was 12.6 percent and Spain's was 25.1 percent.
By comparison, the U.S. unemployment rate was at 6.3 percent in May.
