Lithuania's unemployment rate eased to 14.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011, down by 3.2 percentage points from 17.5 percent a year ago, the EU statistical office said.
Latvia posted the second-biggest decline, 2.4 points to 14.6 percent, and Estonia was third with 2.2 points fall to 11.7 percent.
Lithuania's youth (under 25) unemployment rate reached 34.3 percent last December, making it the fourth after Greece's 50.4 percent, Spain's 49.3 percent, and Portugal's 35 percent.
Eurostat estimates that last February, 24.550 million people were unemployed in the EU-27, of whom 17.134 million were in the eurozone. The eurozone unemployment rate in February was 10.8 percent and the EU-27 unemployment rate was 10.2 percent.
The Baltic countries and some other EU member states publish their unemployment data on a quarterly basis.
