Eurozone jobless rate hits new high in September

The unemployment rate in the eurozone hit a new high of 11.6 percent in September, the European Union's (EU) statistical bureau Eurostat said Wednesday. The figure was up from 11.5 percent in August and 10.3 percent registered one year ago, a sign that the eurozone labor market deteriorated due to ongoing debt crisis, austerity measures and financial market turbulences. For the 27-nation EU, the jobless rate stood at 10.6 percent in September, unchanged from last month. It was 9.8 percent a year ago. Eurostat estimated that 25.751 million men and women in the EU, of whom 18.49 million were in the eurozone, were unemployed in September Compared with August, the number of persons unemployed rose by 169,000 in the EU and by 146,000 in the eurozone. Compared with September 2011, unemployment increased by 2.145 million in the EU and by 2.174 million in the eurozone. Among the Member States, the lowest unemployment rates were recorded in Austria (4.4 percent), Luxembourg (5.2 percent), Germany and Netherlands (5.4 percent), and the highest in Spain (25.8 percent) and Greece (25.1 percent in July 2012). The unemployment situation in Europe was still worse than that in the United States and Japan, where the September unemployment rate was 7.8 percent and 4.2 percent respectively.