'Bleak milestone' as eurozone unemployment hits 12%

Euro falls as predictions of recovery confounded by record joblessness in first two months of year

Unemployed workers wait outside a government job centre in Madrid July 29, 2011. Spain's battered economy suffered more bad news as Moody's threatened to downgrade the country's rating and th
(Image credit: 2011 AFP)

UNEMPLOYMENT in the eurozone hit 12 per cent in the first two months of the year, a record level described by analysts as "another bleak milestone".

The jobless rate in the 17 member countries that have adopted the euro as their currency rose to 12 per cent in February, and the January figure was revised up to the same level, from the 11.9 per cent estimated earlier. A total of 19.07 million people were out of work in the eurozone in February, a rise of 33,000, the Eurostat agency said.

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