Luxembourg (dpa) - The ranks of the jobless in the crisis-plagued
eurozone continued to grow in March, with the unemployment rate
hitting a record 12.1 percent, new data showed Tuesday.
Unemployment has increased relentlessly since mid-2011. Tuesday's
data was in line with the expectations of analysts, many of whom
believe that the numbers will rise further still because of the
currency bloc's enduring debt crisis.
March saw another 62,000 people join the jobless ranks in the
eurozone, bringing the total to 19.2 million, according to Eurostat,
the EU's statistics agency. That was 1.7 million people more than a
year earlier.
That figure included just less than 3.6 million people younger
than 25, bringing the youth unemployment rate to 24 per cent.
Greece and Spain remain the worst affected, with overall
unemployment around 27 per cent. Youth unemployment was above 59 per
cent in Greece and just under 56 per cent in Spain.
The situation varies widely across eurozone countries. At the low
end, Germany and Austria posted overall unemployment rates of only
around 5 per cent and youth unemployment rates of 7.6 per cent.
In the wider 27-member EU, the overall unemployment rate remained
at 10.9 per cent in March, although another 69,000 people became
unemployed. Some 26.5 million people were without a job in the bloc.
