Unemployment figures for Eurozone hit 10 percent

AFP - One in 10 people who could be working is now unemployed across the 16 countries which use the euro, the EU said on Friday as the human cost of the economic crisis was laid bare.

New figures for November 2009 showed that the seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate hit a miserable 10.0 percent, with 102,000 more people left without their own income compared to October.

More than three million people have fallen from the eurozone workforce over the past 12 months, when the rate stood at 8.0 percent, and almost five million more across the full, 27-member European Union.

The Eurostat agency estimated that 22.899 million men and women across the EU -- which also takes in non-euro and recession-mired Britain as well as eastern industrial powerhouse Poland -- were out of work in the run-up to Christmas.

Of those, 15.712 million were in the eurozone economy.

The unemployment rate throughout the EU as a whole was registered at 9.5 percent in November.