In April a further 95,000 people across the eurozone lost their jobs, says Eurostat. This marked another all-time high unemployment rate, with the total of 19.38mn people now out of work.
April's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate stood at 12.2%, up
from 12.1%in the previous month, according to the European
Commission's statistics office.
Southern states like Greece, Spain and Portugal performed the
worst. One in four people in Greece and Spain are now jobless, as
the unemployment rate there stands at about 27%.
The lowest unemployment rate is in Austria at 4.9%.
Youth unemployment remains a special problem, as 3.6 million
people under the age of 25 are out of work across the 17 eurozone
nations. In relative terms, youth unemployment reached a sky-high
24.4% in April.In Italy alone 40.5% of young people are
unemployed.
"We have to deal with the social crisis, which is expressed
particularly in spreading youth unemployment, and place it at the
centre of political action," the BBC quotes Italy's President
Giorgio Napolitano.
In April, the number of people losing their jobs in the
countries using the single currency has increased for the 24th
consecutive month. In the meantime, the jobless figure for all 27
members of the European Union remains at 11%.