Unemployment is at the highest rate since the euro was launched in 1999
Unemployment in the eurozone hit a record high at the end of last year, the Eurostat agency has said.
The jobless rate in the 17 countries that use the single
currency was 10.4% in December, unchanged from November's figure which
was revised up from 10.3%.Some 16.5 million people were out of work in the eurozone in December, up 751,000 on the year before.
The highest unemployment rate remains in Spain (22.9%), while the lowest is in Austria (4.1%).
Unemployment has been rising throughout 2011, as the debt crisis in the region has continued. In December 2010, the unemployment rate in the euro area was 10%.
Investment delays Guillaume Menuet, economist at Citigroup, said he expected the number of people out of work to increase throughout 2012.
"If you think about the direction of employment expectations that you see across various business surveys, the outlook for employment doesn't look particularly enticing, simply because the uncertainty is very high.
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