Eurozone jobless rate at new record

The eurozone economy has passed another bleak milestone with official figures showing unemployment across its 17 countries has hit 12% for the first time since the currency was launched in 1999.

Eurostat, the EU’s statistics office, said the rate in February was unchanged at the record high after January’s figure was revised up to 12% from 11.9%. Spain and Greece have mass unemployment and many other countries are seeing their numbers swell to uncomfortably high levels.