According to the official figures, the jobless rate in the 16 countries that use the euro held steady at 9.9% in the month of January for the third successive month.

In the first estimation for January, the EU's statistics office told media that almost 15.7 million people were unemployed in the eurozone, an increase of 136,000 as compared to the same period in previous year.

On the yearly basis, unemployment has increased by 2.2 million in the eurozone.

Within the eurozone, the Netherlands experienced the lowest unemployment rate at 4.2% while the highest unemployment rate was recorded in Spain, where 18.8% of the available labor pool was jobless.

In the 27-country EU, which comprises non-euro members like Britain and Spain, the jobless rate hit the mark of 9.5 percent in the month of January for the second month.

In the meantime, the highest unemployment rate in the EU's is recorded in Latvia, which is 22.9 percent.