MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Euro zone record in July: 15.1 million jobless

Spain remains the worst case with 18.5% unemployment and Netherlands the best with 3.4%

Unemployment in the 16-member Euro zone hit a 10-year high in July, data released Tuesday showed. EU statistics office Eurostat said that another 167,000 people were unemployed in the Euro zone during July, pushing the jobless rate up to 9.5% from 9.4% in June which takes the total to 15.1 million people.

It was the worst months figure since May 1999. If all 27 members of the EU are included the unemployment rate was 9% equivalent to 21.8 million people out of work.

But the data also showed that the pace of the increase in unemployment as slowing. At the start of the year, the numbers jumped by more than 500,000 as the global recession tightened its grip on the currency block’s economy.

The unemployment rate in July was highest in Spain, where it rose to 18.5% from 18.2% in June. Spain's jobless situation is worst among the country's young adults, with 38% of those under 25 now without work.

Unemployment remained the lowest in the Netherlands, where it increased to 3.4% from June's 3.3%.

Lithuania and Latvia continued to see the biggest rise in the rate of unemployment.

In Lithuania it rose to 16.7% in July from 5.8% a year earlier, while Latvia's has grown to 17.4% from 6.9% last year. Ireland remained high at 12.5%.

Regarding the EU largest economies, unemployment increased in July in France, despite it coming out of recession between April and June. France's unemployment rate in July rose to 9.8% from 9.6% in June.

Germany on the other hand, which also emerged from recession in April to June, saw an unemployment rate of 7.7% in July, the same as June.

Analysts put both sets of figures down to the usual time-lag seen before employment levels start to pick up once a country has left recession.

Best performers besides Netherlands include Austria with 4.4%; Cyprus, 5.5%; Denmark, 5.9% and Czech Republic, 6.4%.