Italy May unemployment rate jumps to 6.5% but 80,000 jobs created in month

ROME (Reuters) -Italy's unemployment rate rose sharply to 6.5% in May from an upwardly revised 6.1% in April, national statistics bureau ISTAT reported on Wednesday, but a net 80,000 jobs were created during the month.

A Reuters survey of nine analysts had forecast a May jobless rate of 6.0%.

April's rate had been previously reported at 5.9%

The reason for the jump in the unemployment rate was that a large number of previously inactive people entered the labour market in May to look for work, ISTAT said.

The 6.5% jobless rate was the highest since June last year.

The youth unemployment rate, measuring job-seekers between 15 and 24 years old, rose to 21.6% from 19.9%.

In the March-to-May period, employment in the euro zone's third largest economy was up by 93,000, or 0.4%, compared with the previous three months, ISTAT said.

In May, there were 408,000 more people in work than in the same month last year, an increase of 1.7%.

The employment rate, one of the lowest in the euro zone, edged up to 62.9% from 62.8% the month before, while the so-called "inactivity rate", measuring those neither working nor looking for work, fell to 32.6% from a previous 33%.

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 Gavin Jones)