Unemployment in the crisis-plagued eurozone continued on its relentless path upward in November, reaching a record 11.8 per cent as 113,000 more people joined the jobless ranks, new data showed Tuesday.
The unemployment rate has steadily increased since mid-2011. The November figure was in line with the expectations of analysts, many of whom believe that it will rise further still because of the currency bloc's enduring debt crisis.
A total of 18.8 million people were unemployed in the 17-member eurozone in November, 2 million more than a year earlier, according to Eurostat, the European Union's statistics agency.
Greece and Spain - two of the countries hardest hit by the crisis - continued to post the worst figures, with overall unemployment at around 26 per cent and youth unemployment above 56 per cent.
The eurozone jobless ranks include 3.7 million people under the age of 25, amounting to a youth unemployment rate of 24.4 per cent.
Austria, Luxembourg, Germany and the Netherlands continued to post the lowest overall unemployment rates, ranging between 4.5 per cent and 5.6 per cent.
In the wider 27-member EU, the overall rate remained at 10.7 per cent in November, although another 154,000 people became unemployed, pushing the total to 26 million people.
The new Eurostat figures were released hours before the European Commission was due to sound the alarm on the employment and social implications of the crisis with a new report.
Unemployment has "reached levels not experienced in nearly two decades," the EU's executive body said.