1 Jun 2013

New jobless high in eurozone

5:57 am on 1 June 2013

Unemployment is at another record high in the 17 countries which use the euro currency.

Latest figures show the unemployment rate in April stood at 12.2%, up from 12.1% in March.

An extra 95,000 people were out of work in zone, taking the total to 19.38 million.

In the 12 months to April, 1.6 million people lost their jobs in the eurozone.

Jobless figures in the eurozone have now been climbing for 24 consecutive months.

The highest jobless rates are in Greece (27.0% in February 2013), Spain (26.8%) and Portugal (17.8%).

Eurostat said Germany had an unemployment rate of 5.4% while Luxembourg's was 5.6%.

The lowest unemployment rate is in Austria at 4.9%.

The BBC reports the unemployment rate for the full 27-member European Union remained at 11%.

Earlier this week, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development predicted that the eurozone economy would contract by 0.6% this year.

The eurozone is in its longest recession since it was created in 1999.