Euro zone unemployment rate holds steady at 11.3% in March

The euro zone’s unemployment rate held steady at the lowest level since June 2012 in March, underling optimism over the health of the region's economy, official data showed on Thursday.

In a report, Eurostat said that the euro zone’s unemployment rate was unchanged at a seasonally adjusted 11.3% last month. Analysts had expected the jobless rate to fall to 11.2% in March.

The data showed that among the member states, the lowest unemployment rates were recorded in Germany (4.7%) and the highest in Greece (25.7% in January 2015) and Spain (23.0%).

EUR/USD was trading at 1.1214 from around 1.1209 ahead of the release of the data, while EUR/GBP was at 0.7255 from 0.7254 earlier.

Meanwhile, European stock markets were mostly higher. Germany's DAX tacked on 0.25%, the EURO STOXX 50 rose 0.2%, France’s CAC 40 declined 0.1%, while London’s FTSE 100 inched up 0.1%.