By Nick Mann | 8 January 2013

The percentage of the eurozone workforce out of work reached a record high of 11.8% in November, according to Eurostat.

The latest monthly data from the European Union’s statistical service show that 18.82 million people in the single currency bloc were unemployed in November – an increase of 113,000 from the previous month, when the jobless rate was 11.7%.

Unemployment in the European Union as a whole remained static between October and November at 10.7%, despite 154,000 more people losing their jobs.

Compared with November 2011, when the eurozone unemployment rate was 10.6%, 2.02 million more people were out of work.

Today’s figures indicate a marked split between Northern and Southern European countries, with the highest jobless rates recorded by Spain (26.6%) and Greece (26%, based on September 2012 figures). Conversely, the lowest rates were in Austria (4.5%), Luxembourg (5.1%), Germany (5.4%) and the Netherlands (5.6%).

This picture was mirrored in the breakdown of youth unemployment, with 56.6% of Spaniards under the age of 25 out of work at the end of November and 57.6% of young Greeks recorded as jobless at the end of September. In contrast, the youth unemployment rate in Germany was 8.1%, in Austria it was 9% and in the Netherlands it was 9.7%.

For the eurozone as a whole, the youth unemployment rate at the end of November was 24.4%, with 420,000 more young people out of work compared with a year earlier, when the jobless rate was 21.6%. Across the EU, the youth unemployment rate increased from 22.2% to 23.7% over the same period.

The aggregate jobless rates for both the eurozone and EU compare unfavourably with those for the US and Japan where, at the end of November, unemployment rates were 7.8% and 4.1% respectively.