The Eurozone jobless rate rose to a two-year high of 8.4 per cent in June as sluggish economic activity prompted firms to lay off workers, according to data today.
The increase from May's 8.3 per cent matched economists' forecasts and saw the unemployment rate of the 12-member bloc reach levels last seen in June 2000, the European Union's statistics office said.
The number of people out of work in the Eurozone has risen to 11.6 million compared with a total of around 11.2 million in December 2001, a Eurostat official said.
A country-by-country breakdown of the June data showed Spain had the highest unemployment rate in the zone, at 11.5 per cent. That was more than nine per centage points higher than Luxembourg, which reported the lowest rate at 2.3 per cent.
The Netherlands, Austria, Ireland, and Portugal had the next lowest jobless rates, but even some of these countries are seeing joblessness rise.
Eurostat said that the most important relative increases in the jobless rate in the past 12 months had been seen in Austria, The Netherlands, Ireland, and Luxembourg.