Sweden’s unemployment rate increased unexpectedly in February to the highest level in eight months, figures from Statistics Sweden showed Thursday.
The unemployment rate rose to 7.6 percent in February from 7.5 percent in the previous month. Economists had expected the jobless rate to fall slightly to 7.4 percent.
In the corresponding month last year, the unemployment rate was 8.4 percent.
The latest jobless rate was the highest since June 2015, when it marked 8.5 percent.
The number of unemployed people decreased to 396,000 in February from 388,000 in January. A year ago, the jobless figure totaled 433,000.
At the same time, smoothed and seasonally adjusted unemployment rate dropped to 7.0 percent in February from 7.1 percent in the preceding month.
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