Unemployment in euro zone countries hit a 10-year high in July as the lagging effects of Europe's deepest post-war recession hit all 27 EU member states, official figures show today.
In the 16 nations in the euro zone, 15.09 million people were unemployed in July - the seasonally-adjusted rate of 9.5% marking a watershed last seen in May 1999, the European Union's Eurostat agency said.
The figures for the full EU bloc were 9%, estimated at 21.794 million people out of work, the highest rate since May 2005. That meant a rise of 167,000 in the numbers unemployed across the euro zone compared with June - and 225,000 across the EU as a whole.
Even when growth returns to economies emerging from recession, as has recently been the case in the major euro zone economies of Germany and France, there is a time-lag before employment levels pick up.
German unemployment rose to 8.3% of the workforce in August, official data there showed today.
Euro zone PMI hits 14 month high
Meanwhile, a widely-watched index of manufacturing activity in the euro zone hit a 14-month high in August, still indicating contraction but continuing a gradual rise up from historic lows.
The euro zone's purchasing managers' index (PMI) for the manufacturing sector, published by data and research group Markit, rose to 48.2 points in August, well above the 46.3 figure seen in July.
The rise brought the index closer to the 50-point threshold above which the euro zone's manufacturing base is expanding and well above the 33.5 points seen back in February. However, it still marked the 15th straight month of contraction as Europe's economy struggles to get itself out of recession.
Analysts said that today's data showed that there is a divergence among the largest economies of the area. From one side German and French manufacturing output rose in August, while activity continued to contract in Spain and Italy.
