Euro zone unemployment jumped in April to its highest level in nearly 10 years, data show today, boding ill for any quick recovery from the worst economic recession since World War Two.
The unemployment rate in the 16-nation euro zone rose to 9.2% from March's 8.9% as 396,000 people lost their jobs, bringing the number of people out of work to 14.579 million, the European Union statistics office said.
The figure, above the 9.1% expected by economists, was the highest since September 1999, signalling the real economy has yet to see the glimmers of optimism appearing in sentiment surveys.
The European Commission expects unemployment in the euro zone to rise to 9.9% this year from 7.5% in 2008 and to as high as 11.5% in 2010.
Analysts explained that unemployment is a lagging indicator and it will be some time before any improvement in economic activity feeds through to help the jobs outlook.
The Commission expects the euro zone economy to return to growth in year-on-year terms from the middle of 2010.
Consumer prices stopped growing in the euro zone in May, a first estimate showed last week. Economists forecast they will fall in June and July in annual terms because oil prices are less than half of their mid-2008 level.
Meanwhile, in the entire 27-country European Union, unemployment rose to 8.6% from March's 8.4%, hitting its highest level since the start of 2006.
Spain had the highest unemployment rate in the EU at 18.1%, up from 17.3% in March, closely followed by Latvia on 17.4%, up from 16.1%.
