At the end of September, 290,584 people were registered with the Croatian Employment Service, 0.2% more than in August, with the registered unemployment going up to 17.7%, DSZ said.
The number of the jobless registered with the Service today was 306,267.
According to figures released today by the European Union statistical office Eurostat, the unemployment rate in Croatia in September fell to 16.1% month on month, while in the EU28 it did not change from August.
There were 24.5 million jobless in the EU in September. The unemployment rate was the lowest in the past two and a half years. The EU28 unemployment rate in September 2014 fell 0.7 percentage points from 10.8% in September 2013.
The lowest unemployment rates were recorded in Germany (5%) and Austria (5.1%), and the highest in Greece (26.4%) and Spain (24%).
In Croatia, the unemployment rate in September was 16.1%, as against 16.4% in August, said Eurostat, which uses the International Labour Organisation's methodology. There were 295,000 jobless, 7,000 fewer than in August and 37,000 fewer than in September 2013.
Croatia's unemployment rate in September 2013 was 18%, falling 1.9 percentage points this past September, which puts Croatia among the EU countries with the biggest year-on-year declines. Bigger decline rates, by more than two percentage points, were recorded only in Hungary, Spain and Portugal.
The biggest year-on-year unemployment increase was recorded in Finland, from 8.2 to 8.7%, and France, from 10.3 to 10.5%.
The number of the jobless in the EU28 in September 2014 fell by 1.8 million on the year.
Youth unemployment remains high, with 4.98 million people under 25 in the EU28, 595,000 fewer than in September 2013. The youth unemployment rate in the EU28 was 21.6%, down from 23.5% in September 2013.
The lowest youth unemployment rates were recorded in Germany (7.6%), Austria (9.1%) and the Netherlands (9.8%), while the highest were recorded in Spain (53.7%), Greece (50.7%), Italy (42.9%), and Croatia (41.8% in Q3).