Italy Unemployment Rate

The unemployment rate in Italy surged to 6.5% in May of 2025 from the upwardly revised 6.1% in the previous month, well above market expectations that it would have eased to 6%, to mark the highest proportion of joblessness in nearly one year. The number of unemployed rose by 113,000 to 1,691,000, also the highest in 11 months, to reflect the unexpected softening of the Italian labor market. In the meantime, the number of employed individuals rose by a 80,000 to 24,301,000, the highest on record. The rise in unemployment was owed to a jump in the labor force, with the participation rate rising by 0.4 percentage points to a record high of 67.4%.