Eurozone unemployment hit a record 10.4 per cent in November and December, provisional official figures showed yesterday.
Monti... promised sweeping reforms to boost employment by freeing up the economy
The Eurostat data agency had previously estimated an unemployment rate of 10.3 per cent in November but it was revised to 10.4 per cent in its latest report.
The jobless rate has now remained at 10 per cent or above for eight months in a row.
An estimated 16.469 million people were without jobs in the 17-nation monetary union in December, 20,000 more than in November, Eurostat said.
Spain was again the nation with the highest unemployment rate at 22.9 per cent, the same figure as November. Greece came second with 19.2 per cent.
Austria still has the lowest rate at 4.1 per cent followed by the Netherlands at 4.9 per cent and Luxembourg at 5.2 per cent.
In Germany, Europe’s top economy, unemployment was stable at 5.5 per cent. It rose slightly in France, the eurozone’s second biggest economy, from 9.8 per cent to 9.9 per cent.
Italy’s unemployment rate rose to 8.9 per cent in December, its highest level since the official Istat agency began releasing monthly data in January 2004. The rate was up from 8.8 per cent in November.
The Istat data also showed that the youth unemployment rate for those aged between 15 and 24 was 31 per cent – 0.2 percentage points lower than in November but three percentage points higher than in December 2010.
Former economics professor Mario Monti, who replaced Silvio Berlusconi as Prime Minister in November after a wave of panic on the financial markets, has promised sweeping reforms to boost employment by freeing up the economy.
Mr Monti has stressed in particular the need to bring more young people and women into the labour force and has called for an overhaul of labour laws to make it easier to hire and fire employees on long-term contracts.
The Italian economy, the eurozone’s third largest after Germany and France, is headed into recession and its public debt is around €1.9 trillion, equivalent to 120 per cent of its gross domestic product.