Seasonally adjusted monthly unemployment rate
- Eurostat dataset
- une_rt_m
- Reference period
- 2026-05
- Unit of measure
- % of active population
Key estimates
- EU aggregate (2026-05): 5.90 % of active population.
- Highest value: Finland at 10.8 % of active population; lowest: Japan at 2.50 % of active population.
- Cross-country mean 5.80 % of active population, standard deviation 2.28, coefficient of variation 39.4% across 32 reporting countries.
- Aggregate change 2025-07→2026-05: -1.9% on a constant panel of 32 countries.
What is the current state of European labour market slack? Eurostat dataset une_rt_m reports seasonally adjusted monthly unemployment rate for 32 reporting countries, with 2026-05 as the most recent period carrying broad coverage. The European aggregate stands at 5.90 % of active population. Monthly seasonally adjusted unemployment is the most closely watched Principal European Economic Indicator.
The five highest values in 2026-05 are recorded by Finland (10.8), North Macedonia (10.5), Spain (10.3), Sweden (8.80), France (8.20), all expressed in % of active population. At the opposite end of the distribution sit Japan (2.50), Czechia (2.90), Bulgaria (2.90), Poland (3.10), Cyprus (3.10). The ratio between the highest and the lowest observation is 4.32, while the median country reports 5.65 % of active population against a mean of 5.80 % of active population.
Dispersion is wide: the standard deviation across countries is 2.28 % of active population, giving a coefficient of variation of 39.4%. The mean sits above the median, which indicates that the distribution is pulled by the upper tail rather than being symmetric. Any European average quoted for this indicator therefore describes a synthetic country that few Member States resemble.
Between 2025-07 and 2026-05 the summed value across the 32 countries reporting in both periods moved by -1.9%. The largest relative increases are observed in Malta (+40.0%), Slovenia (+10.8%), Finland (+9.1%); the largest decreases, or the smallest increases, in Cyprus (-31.1%), Bulgaria (-23.7%), Estonia (-19.0%). Because the panel is held constant, this change is not an artefact of countries entering or leaving the sample.
Lower values are the policy-preferred direction, so the top of the distribution identifies where the burden concentrates: bringing the highest observation down to the median would remove 5.15 % of active population from the European total for that country alone. The estimates above are reproducible: the dataset identifier, filter dimensions and reference period are stated in the methodological note, and the series can be re-downloaded from the Eurostat dissemination API at any time.
Methodological note
Source: Eurostat, dataset une_rt_m ('Unemployment by sex and age - monthly data'), extracted from the Eurostat dissemination API (JSON-stat 2.0) on the dataset update of 2026-07-24. Filter dimensions: s_adj=SA; age=TOTAL; sex=T; unit=PC_ACT. Unit of measure: % of active population. Reference period: 2026-05. Geographic perimeter: national reporting units with two-character geo codes (32 countries with a non-missing observation); European and euro-area aggregates are excluded from the cross-country statistics and reported separately. Descriptive statistics (mean, median, population standard deviation, coefficient of variation) are computed unweighted over reporting countries. Change over time is computed on a constant panel: only countries with a non-missing observation in both the base and the reference period enter the calculation, which removes composition effects but may differ from the officially published aggregate. No imputation, seasonal adjustment or re-scaling has been applied beyond what Eurostat performs at source. Flagged provisional and estimated observations are retained as published.
Source data
The underlying series can be inspected and re-downloaded from the Eurostat data browser.