Euro zone unemployment hit a record 10.4% in December, provisional official figures showed today.
The Eurostat data agency also revised its November figure up to 10.4% from an initial estimate of 10.3%.
The jobless rate has now remained at 10% or above for eigth 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%, the same figure as November. Greece came second with 19.2%. Austria still has the lowest rate at 4.1% followed by the Netherlands at 4.9% and Luxembourg at 5.2%.
In Germany, Europe's top economy, unemployment was stable at 5.5%. It rose slightly in France, the euro zone's second biggest economy, from 9.8% to 9.9%.
The rate for the entire 27-nation European Union was stuck at 9.9% in December, with an estimated 23.816 million people unemployed.
Italian unemployment hits highest level since 2004
Italy's unemployment rate rose to 8.9% in December, its highest level since the official Istat agency began releasing monthly data in January 2004.
The rate was up from 8.8% in November, Istat said in a statement, as the government struggles to rein in public finances and boost growth.
The Istat data also showed that the youth unemployment rate for those aged between 15 and 24 was 31% - 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.
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 euro zone's third largest after Germany and France, is headed into recession and its public debt is around €1.9 trillion, equivalent to 120% of its gross domestic product (GDP).
