Italy April unemployment falls to 5.9%, with firm job growth in last 3 months

ROME (Reuters) -Italy's jobless rate fell to 5.9% in April from 6.1% in March, national statistics bureau ISTAT reported on Tuesday, with a stable number of people employed during the month and an increase in those leaving the labour market.

A Reuters survey of seven analysts had forecast an April jobless rate of 6.1%.

The youth unemployment rate, measuring job-seekers between 15 and 24 years old, fell to 19.2% in April from 20.4% in March, revised from an originally reported 19.0%.

In the February-to-April period, total employment in the euro zone's third largest economy was up by 96,000, or 0.4%, compared with the previous three months, ISTAT said.

In April, the number of people in work was up by 282,000 or 1.2%, compared with April 2024.

Less positively, in April the number of so-called "inactive" people neither working nor looking for work, increased by 39,000, or 0.3% from the month before, with the inactivity rate rising marginally to 33.2%.

The employment rate, one of the lowest in the euro zone, slipped marginally to 62.7% from 62.8% the month before.

Italy's 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 the government forecasts 0.6% growth this year.

(Reporting by Antonella Cinelli, editing by Gavin Jones)