The unemployment rate across the Euro currency area hit a new high of 11.1 per cent in May, according to figures from the EU’s statistics agency Eurostat.

Over 17.5 million people in the 17 Eurozone countries are now out of work, an increase of 88,000 on the previous month, the agency found. Things were not much better in the wider European Union of 27 countries, where nearly 25 million people are jobless, a rate of 10.3 per cent.

Unsurprisingly, the member states with the worst unemployment are crisis-hit Spain (24.6 per cent) and Greece (21.9 per cent) while those with the best are Austria (4.1 per cent) the Netherlands (5.1 per cent), Luxembourg (5.4 per cent) and Germany (5.6 per cent). Meanwhile, the UK’s current unemployment rate is 8.1 per cent.

Compared with a year ago, the unemployment rate is rising in 18 of the EU states and falling in eight.

Recent months have seen slight falls in UK unemployment but there is “every chance” that the jobless rate will edge up again over the summer, CIPD Labour Market Policy Adviser Gerwyn Davies said when the UK’s last official statistics were published late last month.

“These remain tough and uncertain times for employers,” wrote Davies. “We remain clear that the UK labour market has significant underlying strength and flexibility – and a little growth will go a long way in improving the labour market picture. Policy makers just need to find the ways to deliver that growth soon.”