By Marcus Leach
Official figures have revealed that unemployment in the eurozone has reached another record high.
The seasonally-adjusted rate for April was 12.2%, up from 12.1% the month before. An extra 95,000 people were out of work in the 17 countries that use the euro, taking the total to 19.38 million.
"The Eurozone tragedy is playing yet another encore - and the final curtain is still a long way off," Viktor Nossek, head of research at Boost ETP, commented.
"Recession has crept steadily inwards from the Eurozone's moribund periphery, and has now infected formerly strong core states like France, Finland and the Netherlands.
"There is precious little room for optimism - exports are slowing and forward-looking indicators like PMI are deep in negative territory.
"With no prospect of fiscal stimulus and no agreement on, let alone plan for, monetary stimulus beyond a further interest rate cut - it's hard to see how the ECB can end the downward spiral.
"The lesson from the now resurgent US is clear - QE can help and its inflationary impact need not be prohibitive.
"With so many Europeans out of work or fearing for their jobs, domestic demand will continue to slip without a combination of fiscal stimulus and a targeted form of QE that allows debt to be monetised. The ECB must take a chance on QE."
Both Greece and Spain have jobless rates above 25%. The lowest unemployment rate is in Austria at 4.9%.
The European Commission's statistics office, Eurostat, said Germany had an unemployment rate of 5.4% while Luxembourg's was 5.6%.
Join us on
Follow @freshbusiness
