The euro area (EA17) unemployment rate remained at 11.2 percent in June, unchanged when compared to the month of May, the European Union (EU) said on Thursday.

According to Eurostat, the EU's statistical office, the unemployment rate increased by 1.2 percent on a year-to-year basis, with the June 2011 rate at 10 percent. Meanwhile, the wider 27-nation EU region (EU27) registered an unemployment rate of 10.4 percent in June, also stable compared with May, while increasing by almost 1 percent compared to last year's 9.5 percent in June 2011.

The report's figures also estimated that 25 million men and women in the EU27, of whom 17.8 million were in the euro area, were unemployed in June. Compared with the previous month, the number of people unemployed increased by 127,000 in the EU27 and by 123,000 in the euro area.

Compared with June 2011, unemployment rose by 2.1 million in the EU27 and by 2 million in the euro area.

Among the EU's Member States, the lowest unemployment rates were recorded in Austria (4.5 percent), the Netherlands (5.1 percent), Germany and Luxembourg (both 5.4 percent), and the highest in Spain (24.8 percent) and Greece (22.5 percent in April).

Compared with a year ago, the unemployment rate fell in seven EU Member States, increased in nineteen and remained stable in Sweden. The largest falls were observed in Estonia (13.6 percent to 10.9 percent between the first quarters of 2011 and 2012), Latvia (17.1 percent to 15.3 percent between the first quarters of 2011 and 2012) and Lithuania (15.4 percent to 13.7 percent).

Outside the European Union, the unemployment rate was 8.2 percent in the United States in June and 4.4 percent in Japan in May.