Brussels, 02/05/2012 (Agence Europe) - In March 2012, unemployment in the eurozone reached its highest level since the launch of monetary union, explained the EU's statistics office, Eurostat, on Wednesday 2 May, explaining that 17,365 million men and women were unemployed in the eurozone in March, up 169,000 on February. This is the eleventh month in a row in which eurozone unemployment has exceeded 10% of the working population. The lowest levels of unemployment are in Austria (4.0%), the Netherlands (5.0%), Luxembourg (5.2%) and Germany (5.6%), and the highest in Spain (24.1%) and Greece (21.7% in January 2012). Compared with March 2011, there were 1.732 million more unemployed people in the eurozone.
Eurostat adds that in the EU27, unemployment reached 10.2% in March 2012, the same as in February, and up from 9.4% in March 2011. Compared with March 2011, a further 2.123 million people were unemployed in the EU27.
In the year up until March 2012, unemployment fell in eight member states and rose in 19. The greatest falls were in Lithuania (from 17.5% to 14.3% between the fourth quarter of 2010 and the fourth quarter of 2011) and Latvia (from 17.1% to 14.6% between Q410 and Q411). The greatest increases were recorded in Greece (from 14.7% to 21.7% between January 2011 and January 2012), Spain (from 20.8% to 24.1%) and Cyprus (from 6.9% to 10.0%). (OL/transl.fl)