Unemployment in the crisis-battered euro zone rose to a record 12 per cent in February, with an additional 33,000 people joining the jobless ranks, new data showed Tuesday.

The unemployment rate has increased steadily since mid-2011, and many analysts say it will rise further because of the euro zone’s enduring debt crisis.

The January figure was also revised upwards on Tuesday from 11.9 per cent to 12 per cent, by the European Union’s statistics agency, Eurostat.

It said that just over 19 million people were unemployed in the 17-member euro zone in February, 1.8 million more than a year earlier.

They included 3.6 million people under the age of 25, with the youth unemployment rate hitting 23.9 per cent.

Greece and Spain have been the worst affected, with overall unemployment above 26 per cent and youth unemployment more than 58 per cent in Greece and above 55 per cent in Spain. Germany, Austria and the Netherlands continued to post the lowest rates.

In the wider 27-member EU, the overall rate increased to 10.9 per cent in February, after another 76,000 people became unemployed. Some 26.3 million people are without a job in the bloc.

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