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Eurozone jobless at record 11%

Brussels - Eurozone unemployment stood at a record high of 11% for the second month running in April, with Spain the hardest hit at 24.3%, revised official figures showed Friday.

More than 17.4 million people were jobless in the 17-nation single currency area in April, as 110 000 more men and women joined unemployment queues, according to Eurostat data agency.

The March rate was initially estimated at 10.9% but Eurostat revised it to 11%, the highest level since the creation of the monetary union in 1999.

Youth unemployment surged again as nearly 3.36 million people under 25 were looking for work in May, an increase of 214 000 from the previous month.

Unemployment in the eurozone has remained above 10% for 12 months in a row as the bloc struggles to revive an economy contaminated by a debt crisis that is spreading to Spain.

European leaders hold a summit on June 28-29 aimed at devising growth policies to go together with an austerity drive that some say has choked the economy.

In the wider, 27-nation European Union unemployment rose to 10.3 in April compared to 10.2% in March. Some 24.67 million men and women were jobless in the EU as unemployment increased by 102 000 people.

Spain recorded again the worst unemployment rate at 24.3%, with more than one in two people under 25 without work.

Greece was next at 21.7% in February, the latest available figures for that country, followed by Latvia at 15.2% in the first quarter and Portugal at 15.2% in May.

Austria has the lowest rate at 3.9%, Luxembourg and the Netherlands at 5.2% and Germany at 5.4%.

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