Italy February jobless rate falls to 5.9%, lowest since 2007

ROME (Reuters) - Italy's unemployment rate fell to 5.9% in February from 6.2% the month before, hitting its lowest level since April 2007 in a boost for Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, data showed on Tuesday.

National statistics bureau ISTAT reported that a net 47,000 jobs were created during the month.

A Reuters survey of 11 analysts had forecast a February jobless rate of 6.3%, stable at the previously reported level for January.

In February, the number of people in work in the euro zone's third largest economy was up by 567,000 or 2.4%, compared with February 2024.

In the December-to-February period, employment was up by 199,000, or 0.8%, compared with the previous three months, ISTAT said.

The long-running increase in employment has come against a backdrop of a near-stagnant economy and stagnant wages.

Italian gross domestic product grew by just 0.7% in each of the last two years, and most analysts expect a similar sluggish rate of expansion in 2025.

Italy's employment rate, one of the lowest in the euro zone, edged up in February to 63% from 62.9% the month before, reaching its highest level since ISTAT's current series began in 2004.

Less positively, the number of so-called "inactive" people neither working nor looking for work, increased in February by 33,000, or 0.3% from the month before, with the activity rate slipping to 67.1% from 67.2%.

The youth unemployment rate, measuring job-seekers between 15 and 24 years old, fell in February to 16.9% from 18.3% in January, registering the lowest level since the start of the series in 2024.

(Reporting by Gavin Jones)