BRUSSELS, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Regional unemployment rates continued to vary widely across the European Union (EU) regions last year with a range from 2.1 percent to 31.3 percent, official data showed Thursday.
The readings offered detailed observation of the EU's labor market development as statistics were presented on the basis of 276 region units out of the bloc's 28 member states.
More than 80 percent of the EU regions saw their unemployment rate fall in 2016 over 2015, and around 60 percent recorded a decrease of at least 0.5 percentage points, said Eurostat, the bloc's statistics office.
Germany, which consists of 38 regions under the EU's Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) system, registered majority of the bloc's low-jobless-rate regions, while Greece and Spain saw the highest.
The lowest rate was recorded in Niederbayern in Germany at 2.1 percent and the highest in Greece's Dytiki Makedonia at 31.3 percent, said Eurostat.
In 2016, the average unemployment rate for young people aged between 15 and 24 in the EU was 18.7 percent and regional differences were however marked, the office said.
The lowest rates were again notably recorded in German regions, in particular Schwaben (4.3 percent), Oberbayern and Tubingen (both 4.6 percent) and the highest in Ciudad Autonoma de Melilla (69.1 percent) and Ciudad Autonoma de Ceuta (63.3 percent) in Spain.
data showed in more than three-quarters of the EU regions, the unemployment rate for young people was at least twice that of total unemployment.
The long-term unemployment share, which is defined as the percentage of unemployed persons who have been unemployed for 12 months or more, stood at 46.6 percent on average in the EU last year.
The lowest shares of long-term unemployed were recorded in Swedish regions. On the other hand, more than three-quarters of the unemployed had been out of work for at least a year in the French overseas region Mayotte, five Greek regions as well as one in Bulgaria, the Eurostat added.
