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[size=150:2egphp8y]Generation' fears for Europe's youth as unemployment soars across eurozone and leaves more than 19million without jobs
Over the past month 33,000 people across eurozone became unemployed
Spain and Greece still suffer from unemployment rates above 26 per cent

By Tim Shipman and Hugo Duncan

PUBLISHED:14:08, 2 April 2013| UPDATED:01:36, 3 April 2013
Europe faces a ‘lost generation’ who may never work as joblessness soars to record levels in the eurozone.

New figures show that, for the first time since the single currency was created in 1999, the unemployment rate hit 12 per cent – compared with 7.7 per cent in Britain.

The grim milestone reveals a generational disaster in the making in near-bankrupt southern European nations.

Problems: Unemployment across the Eurozone has struck 12 per cent for the first time since the currency was launched. It follows the recent Cyprus crisis. A woman withdraws money from the ATM of a bank in Nicosia

In Greece, 58 per cent of under-25s are unemployed, along with 56 per cent in Spain and 38 per cent in Portugal and Italy. In the eurozone as a whole it is 24 per cent. In the UK it is 21 per cent.

Across the eurozone, 19million are out of work. For the EU as a whole, the figure is 26.3million.
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Downing Street admitted that ministers still fear that economic deterioration in the eurozone will have a chilling effect on the UK economy.

‘It remains very much as it has been, which is clearly that the issues that have impacted on the eurozone have also impacted on the UK economy,’ a spokesman said. ‘That’s why we need to stick to the course we are on.’

EU Employment Commissioner Laszlo Andor added: ‘Such unacceptably high levels of unemployment are a tragedy for Europe and a signal of how serious a crisis some eurozone countries are now in.’

The figures released yesterday are for February – before the Cyprus crisis which saw the controversial £8.5billion bailout that experts believe has further destabilised the euro and may cost even more jobs.

While Cyprus has 14 per cent unemployment, it is expected to get worse. Greece has the EU’s worst rate at 26.4 per cent.

Experts warned that alienation caused by unemployment could set Europe back for years. Andrea Broughton, principal research fellow at the Institute for Employment Studies, said: ‘Youth unemployment remains the EU’s biggest employment-related headache, and shows no signs of abating.

‘Urgent action is required to avoid the creation of a lost generation of young people who have been denied access to work.’

Marie Diron, senior economic adviser at Ernst &
Young, said: ‘The economic and social consequences of high unemployment continue to represent one of the most significant threats to the future of the eurozone.’

The downturn in manufacturing in the eurozone has also deepened.

The purchasing managers’ index of activity – where anything below 50 represents decline – fell from 47.9 in February to 46.8 in March. The sharpest decline was in Greece, followed by France.

The eurozone economy shrank 0.6 per cent in the final quarter of last year.

n DAVID Cameron’s hopes of reclaiming powers from Brussels have suffered a setback after both Germany and France refused to co-operate.

The Prime Minister has hailed a review being conducted by the Foreign Office as paving the way for a renegotiation of Britain’s relationship with the EU ahead of his promised referendum on the issue in 2017.

But German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande have decided not to take part, calling it ‘a British domestic political exercise’.

UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage said Mr Cameron’s promise of renegotiation had been ‘shown to be a sham’

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