Spain's Unemployed Youth Rate 55%

Official data showed that the jobless rate in the last three months of 2012 rose 1% to 26%, or 5.97 million people.

The impact has been acute for 16 to 24-year-olds, who saw the rate in the last quarter of 2012 surge to 55.13% from 52.34% in the previous three months.

The unemployment numbers will be a blow for Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's government, which was last year forecasting a jobless rate of 24.6% by the end of 2012.

The figure, the highest since the mid-1970s, follows Spain's prolonged recession and deep spending cuts.

Note
Youth unemployment continues to be a cause for concern across the European Union, not just Spain.Tackling youth unemployment across the 27-nation bloc has become a serious issue for governments and policymakers.

Eurostat, the EU's statistics body, estimates in November 2012 there were 5.8 million people (23.7%) aged under 25 unemployed in the 27 countries, of whom 3.73 million (24.4%) were in the eurozone area. The lowest rates were in Germany (8%), Austria (9%) and the Netherlands (9.7 %)and the highest was in Greece 57.6 % (September 2012 figure) and Spain (56.5%).