Italy June unemployment rate falls to 6.3% with 16,000 jobs created in month

ROME (Reuters) -Italy's unemployment rate fell to 6.3% in June from 6.5% in May, national statistics bureau ISTAT reported on Thursday, as a net 16,000 jobs were created during the month.

A Reuters survey of 8 analysts had forecast a June jobless rate of 6.4%.

The youth unemployment rate, measuring job-seekers between 15 and 24 years old, decreased to 20.1% from 21.5%.

In the period between April and June, employment in the euro zone's third-largest economy was up by 93,000 units, or 0.4%, compared with the previous three months, ISTAT said.

In June, there were 363,000 more people in work than in the same month last year, an increase equal to 1.5%.

The employment rate, one of the lowest in the euro zone, was stable at 62.9%, while the so-called "inactivity rate", measuring those neither working nor looking for work, rose to 32.8% from a previous 32.6%.

Italy's long-running increase in employment has come against a backdrop of weak economic growth and stagnant wages.

Italian gross domestic product grew by just 0.7% in each of the last two years, and the government forecasts 0.6% growth this year.

(Reporting by Antonella Cinelli, graphic by Stefano Bernabei, editing by Giulia Segreti)