LONDON (AP) -- Unemployment in the 16 countries that use the euro held steady at 9.9 percent in January for the third month running, official figures showed Monday.
In its first estimate for the month, the EU's statistics office said around 15.7 million people were unemployed in the eurozone, up 136,000 on the previous month.
On an annual basis, unemployment has risen by 2.2 million in the eurozone.
Within the eurozone, the Netherlands had the lowest unemployment rate at 4.2 percent while the highest was in Spain, where 18.8 percent of the available labor force was unemployed.
In the 27-country EU, which includes non-euro members such as Britain and Spain, the unemployment rate was 9.5 percent in January for the second month running.
The highest unemployment rate in the EU is Latvia's 22.9 percent.
