The unemployment rate adjusted for seasonal fluctuations across the single currency thus continued to make marginal improvements and down from 11.3% in December and from 11.8% in year-on-year terms.


In the broader 28 member states European Union, the unemployment rate came in at 9.8% in January, reflecting a similar 0.1% improvement in monthly terms and improving from the 10.6% rate prevailing a year ago.


In year-on-year terms, the unemployment positions of 24 member states were better now than a year ago, remaining stable in Belgium and rising in Cyprus (15.7% to 16.1%), Finland (8.4% to 8.9%) and France (10.1% to 10.2%).


Portugal was among those countries experiencing the sharpest corrections in their year-on-year unemployment rate with its 15% to 13.3% swing bettered only by Spain (25.5% to 23.4%), Estonia (8.5% to 6.4%) and Ireland (12.1% to 10.0%).


Over a fifth of Europe’s youth remain on the search for a job with the Eurozone seeing 22.9% of young persons aged under 25 out of work in a statistic that drops back only to 21.2% in the broader European Union.


Whilst both represent year-on-year improvements, against 23.3% and 24.3% respectively, youth unemployment blackspots remain starkly clear with Spain, Greece, Croatia and Italy all experiencing rates in excess of 40%.


In Portugal, this rate stood at 33.6% in January and down from 35.2% a year ago.