The seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate in the eurozone stayed at 11.4 percent in August, unchanged from July, the European Union's (EU) statistical office Eurostat said Monday.
It was up from 10.2 percent registered a year ago, a sign that the eurozone labor market deteriorated amid the worsening debt crisis and financial market turbulences.
For the 27-nation EU, the jobless rate was 10.5 percent in August, also stable compared with the previous month but higher than 9.7 percent a year earlier.
Eurostat estimated that 25.466 million men and women in the EU, of whom 18.196 million were in the eurozone, were unemployed in August.
Compared with July, the jobless number rose by 49,000 in the EU and by 34,000 in the eurozone. Compared with August 2011, the rise was 2.170 million and 2.144 million respectively.
Among the Member States, the lowest unemployment rates were recorded in Austria (4.5 percent), Luxembourg (5.2 percent), the Netherlands (5.3 percent), and the highest in Spain (25.1 percent) and Greece (24.4 percent in June 2012).
The unemployment situation in Europe was still worse than that in the United States and Japan, where the unemployment rate was 8.1 percent and 4.1 percent respectively in August./.