Luxembourg - Unemployment in the 19-member eurozone remained at 8.6 per cent in January, the lowest rate in almost a decade and on a par with the previous month, the European Union's statistics office says.

Eurostat reported that just over 14 million people were out of work in the euro area in January.

It also revised the December unemployment rate down by 0.1 percentage points, making the jobless rate for the two months the lowest recorded since December 2008, before the bloc's economic crisis had taken hold.

In the European Union as a whole, unemployment was at 7.3 per cent in January, the same as in December.

The lowest unemployment levels were recorded in the Czech Republic, Malta and Germany, which were all below 4 per cent in January. The highest rates were seen in Greece and Spain.

The EU's unemployment rate was more than double that of the United States, where the figure stood at 4.1 per cent in January.