Official figures show that the unemployment rate across the 16 euro zone countries was stuck at 10% for the sixth month in a row in August.
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.
Compared with July, however, the estimated numbers unemployed actually fell by around 20,000. Compared with August 2009, the number of people out of work was up by more than half a million.
In the wider, 27-nation EU, the unemployment rate rose to 9.7% from 9.6% in July, with more than 23 million people out of work in August.
Spain remains the EU's worst affected country, with an unemployment rate of more than 20%. By comparison with major international economic rivals, US unemployment was 9.6% in August and the Japanese figure was 5.1%.
