ROME, Jan 30 (Reuters) – Italy’s unemployment rate was stable at 5.6% in December but a net 20,000 jobs were lost during the month, national statistics bureau ISTAT reported on Friday.
A Reuters poll of eight analysts had forecast a December jobless rate at 5.8%.
Despite the jobs lost in the final month of the year, in the period between October and December employment was still up by 74,000, or 0.3%, compared with the previous quarter.
In December there were 62,000 more people with a job compared to the same month in 2024, a rise of 0.3%.
Italy’s long-running increase in employment has come against a backdrop of weak economic growth and stagnant wages.
Gross domestic product increased by 0.3% in the fourth quarter of 2025 following a 0.2% rise in the previous three months, ISTAT said earlier on Friday.
The unemployment rate in November was revised down to 5.6% from an originally reported 5.7%.
In December, the youth unemployment rate in the euro zone’s third largest economy, measuring job-seekers between 15 and 24 years old, rose to 20.5% from 19.1% the previous month, upwardly revised from 18.8%.
So-called “inactive” people, neither working nor looking for work, rose by 31,000 in December from November, ISTAT said, with the “inactivity rate” edging up to 33.7% from 33.6% the month before.
Italy’s employment rate, one of the lowest in the euro zone, was stable at 62.5% in December.
(Reporting by Antonella Cinelli, graphic by Stefano Bernabei, editing by Gavin Jones)
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