Official Eurostat unemployment figures pile pressure on Brussels to implement policies that generate growth and jobs
The eurozone jobless rate soared to a record 12% in February, piling pressure on Brussels to deploy policies to generate growth and employment.
Figures from the European statistics office Eurostat showed that the overall unemployment rate in the 17-member currency union has risen steeply since February last year, when the rate was 10.9%.
Across the EU as a whole, there are now 26.3m people out of work, pushing the jobless rate to 10.9%, up from 10.2% in the same month last year.
The UK, which had until recently succeeded in cutting unemployment, joined a list of 19 EU member states that suffered a rise in February. Only eight countries experienced a fall in unemployment.
The European commission has put forward plans to boost training and apprenticeships for young unemployed people, but has come under increasing criticism for acting too slowly.
Analysts have also argued that austerity policies imposed by Brussels and the European Central Bank (ECB) to bring government budget deficits below 3% have harmed growth and proved counterproductive.
Despite operating against a backdrop of rising unemployment and falling inflation, the ECB president, Mario Draghi, has so far resisted easing monetary policy in a similar vein to the Bank of England and US Federal Reserve, which have pumped vast sums into their respective economies under the policy of quantitative easing (QE).
The ECB meets on Thursday to consider cutting interest rates to boost growth, but it is expected to maintain the current 0.75% base rate and reject pleas to adopt QE.
Andrea Broughton, principal research fellow at the Institute for Employment Studies, said Brussels risked creating a lost generation of young people who have left school of college only to join the dole queue.
She said: "Youth unemployment remains the EU's biggest employment-related headache, and shows no signs of abating, with an average rate for the under-25s of 23.5% in the 27 EU member states. In Greece, the youth unemployment rate is nearing 60% – a rate of 58.4% was recorded in December 2012. In Spain, the youth unemployment figure is 55.7%."
Brussels launched a youth guarantee earlier this year that urged member states to ensure all young people receive an offer of work, continued education, an apprenticeship or a traineeship within four months of leaving formal education or becoming unemployed.
Broughton, however, said that while the initiaitve was supported by EU funds, it was unlikely to have a major impact on the overall figures.
"The EU is aware that urgent action is required to avoid the creation of a lost generation of young people who have been denied access to work. While this is a laudable initiative, based on concrete EU funding, it is unlikely to make any significant inroads into the youth unemployment figures for some time," she said.
The country with the lowest unemployment was Austria, according to Eurostat, with an unemployment rate of 4.8%. Germany's rate was 5.4% and Luxembourg's 5.5%. In sharp contrast, unemployment in Greece stands at 26.2%, Spain 26.3%, and Portugal 17.5%.
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