Daily News – April, 1st

Unemployment rate reached 10 pc record in euro-zone

The euro zone’s 10 percent jobless rate in February was the highest since August 1998 and in line with market expectations. A month earlier unemployment was at 9.9 percent. Eurostat said on Wednesday 15,749 million people were unemployed in February in the euro zone, an increase of 61,000 from the previous month. Unemployment is a lagging indicator as the job market is slow to react to economic developments. Analysts expect the euro zone jobless rate to peak at around 11 percent in 2010. The lowest jobless rate among euro zone countries was in The Netherlands, at 4.0 percent. Austria’s rate was 5.0 percent. Spain, hit hard by the collapse of its construction sector, had the highest unemployment at 19.0 percent. Germany, the euro zone’s biggest economy, registered the smallest increase in unemployment from a year earlier, rising to 7.5 percent from 7.3 percent.