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CONKLING KOPCIKECONOMICS
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European Union: Unemployment rate (monthly)

Unemployed people aged 15 and over as a percentage of the labour force, seasonally adjusted, on the ILO definition as harmonised by the OECD.

Data status: Current
Official statisticSource figures as of October 16, 2026Sources & methods
Sources
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Period covered
Jan 2000 – Aug 2026
Source figures as of
October 16, 2026
Geography
European Union
Sector
Whole economy (not a single sector)
Seasonal adjustment
Seasonally adjusted
Transformations
Views other than the level (changes, averages, volatility) are calculated by CK Economics from these figures
Revisions
Replaced with the source’s latest figures whenever it revises them.
Data status
Current

Full method · Research standards

Key figures

CK estimate% of labour force · calculated by CK Economics from Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development data

Latest · Aug 2026
6.1
+0.1 pp vs a year earlier1
5-year change
−0.8 pp
since Aug 20212
10-year change
−3.0 pp
since Aug 20162
Record high
11.7
Jan 2013 (and 4 other periods)3
Record low
5.8
Oct 20243
Where the latest ranks
8th pct.
Higher than 8% of the other 319 observations since Jan 20004
  1. 1Latest observation against the observation one year earlier (for weekly data, the nearest within three days).
  2. 2Latest observation against the observation five and ten years earlier.
  3. 3Highest and lowest published observations across the full history shown.
  4. 4Share of the other published observations that are lower than the latest one, rounded down.

Methodology

Unemployed people aged 15 and over as a percentage of the labour force, seasonally adjusted, on the ILO definition as harmonised by the OECD. National statistics as compiled by the OECD. Read from the OECD's SDMX API, or from its DBnomics mirror when the OECD's API is unavailable; the series' source note says which. Source series DSD_LFS@DF_IALFS_UNE_M/EU.UNE_LF_M.PT_LF_SUB._Z.Y._T.Y_GE15._Z.M. Licence: CC BY 4.0.

How we collect, check and project every dataset →

Source

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD Data Explorer (OECD, retrieved 2026-10-19). https://sdmx.oecd.org/public/rest/data/OECD.SDD.TPS,DSD_LFS@DF_IALFS_UNE_M,/EU.UNE_LF_M.PT_LF_SUB._Z.Y._T.Y_GE15._Z.M

All data

320 observations, newest first · % of labour force

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PeriodValueChange y/y
Aug 20266.1+0.1 pp
Jul 20266.1+0.1 pp
Jun 20266.1+0.1 pp
May 20266.1+0.1 pp
Apr 20266.1+0.1 pp
Mar 20266.1+0.1 pp
Feb 20266.1+0.1 pp
Jan 202660 pp
Dec 20256+0.1 pp
Nov 20256+0.1 pp
Oct 20256+0.2 pp
Sep 20256+0.1 pp
Aug 20256+0.1 pp
Jul 202560 pp
Jun 202560 pp
May 202560 pp
Apr 202560 pp
Mar 202560 pp
Feb 20256−0.1 pp
Jan 20256−0.1 pp
Dec 20245.9−0.2 pp
Nov 20245.9−0.2 pp
Oct 20245.8−0.3 pp
Sep 20245.9−0.2 pp