Portugal's monthly unemployment rate fell to 6.8% in February from a revised reading of 7.0% in January, the National Statistics Institute (INE) said in its flash estimate on Thursday.

The labour underutilisation rate slipped by 0.2 percentage points from the previous month to 12.0%.

The youth unemployment rate (16-24 years old) decreased to 18.8% in February, from 20.9% in the previous month and from 19.9% a year ago, the INE said. (Reporting by Maria Luiza Amaral, and Joao Manuel Mauricio, editing by Andrei Khalip)