Italian unemployment down to 11.5% (2)

(ANSA) - Rome, July 1 - Italy's unemployment rate was 11.5% in May, according to provisional data released by Istat on Friday. This compares to 11.6% in April, after the national statistics agency revised the figure for the previous month.
    Istat says that the proportion of people in employment rose to 57.1%, an increase of 0.1 of a percentage point. It said that the youth unemployment rate was steady at 36.9% of the 15-to-24-year-olds who are actively on the labour market. Istat said there were 299,000 more people in work in May that in the same month last year and 175,000 fewer people on the dole. The number of people who are 'inactive' as they are not considered to be on the labour market dropped by 2.2%, it said.
    It said that. in total, 22.677 million people were employed, 2.95 million were unemployed in May.