The unemployment rate in the euro zone stuck at a record 10% in July for the fifth month in a row, European Union data showed today.
Almost 16 million people were out of work in the common currency area with the euro zone unemployment rate at its highest level since the euro's creation in 1999, seasonally-adjusted Eurostat figures showed.
Throughout the wider 27-nation EU the rate was also unchanged at 9.6%, which equated to more than 23 million people out of work in July.
Spain retained the bloc's highest unemployment rate of 20.3%, but Eurostat said that Germany recorded a fall from 7.6% to 6.9% compared to one year earlier.
By comparison with major international economic rivals, the unemployment rate was an unchanged 9.5% in July in the US and 5.2% in Japan.
Meanwhile, inflation in the euro zone retreated to 1.6% in August, having hit a near two-year high point in the summer, separate European Union data showed today.
The 12-month rate slipped from 1.7% in July, although it has risen almost continuously from 0.5% last November during the bloc's emergence from the world's worst recession since the 1930s.
Inflation in the euro zone in July was the highest since November 2008, when it stood at 2.1% - just above the European Central Bank's core economic target of 2%.
In the wider 27-nation EU, which includes Britain and Poland, annual inflation rose to 2.1% in July compared to 1.9% a month earlier.
