http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8d3d76c6-0bb3-11e2-b8d8-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2884Xx267
Eurozone unemployment rate stayed at a record high in August, adding pressure on the European Central Bank to cut interest rates on Thursday in an attempt to ease lending and stimulate business across the debt crisis-hit bloc.
Joblessness in the 17-country euro area remained steady at 11.4 per cent in August compared with July, but rose significantly from a year earlier when the unemployment rate was at 10.2 per cent, said Eurostat, the EU’s statistical office. Youth unemployment – joblessness among under-25s – deteriorated further, rising to 22.8 per cent, up from 20.7 per cent during the same month a year ago, highlighting the extensive cost of the sovereign debt crisis on future generations.
A mixture of tough austerity measures and slowing demand for European goods forced 34,000 people out of a job in August, pushing the overall tally of unemployed people to 18.2m – roughly the population of Sweden, Denmark and Ireland combined. Since April 2011, the number of unemployed has risen every month, bringing the total out of a job to 2.64m.
Although unemployment rose at the slowest rate since April 2011,
economists expect it to keep increasing given that business sentiment remains at record low levels and recent manufacturing data showed that output contracted for the 14th consecutive month in September.
