According to the Tuesday-released figures by the European Union's (EU) statistics agency Eurostat, the unemployment rate in the 16-country euro currency zone increased to 9.5 percent in July from 9.4 percent in June - thereby marking the area's highest jobless rate since May 1999!

With the reported rise in unemployment rate in July, the number of unemployed people in the euro zone increased by 167,000 during the month, to reach 15.09 million. Meanwhile, unemployment in the whole of EU, comprising 27 countries, climbed to 9 percent in July, from the June figures of 8.9 percent. The number of unemployed people in July rose by 225,000, with a total of 5.11 million unemployed workers.

Among all the European nations, Spain takes the lead in terms of maximum number of unemployed people - with nearly one in five workers having lost a job -, and an unemployment rate of a whopping 18.5 per cent.

Talking of euro-zone nations, Ireland comes behind Spain, with a jobless rate of 12.5 per cent; followed by France and Germany, with 9.8 percent and 7.7 percent unemployment rates respectively.

Furthermore, the year-on-year unemployment in the three, non-euro Baltic EU nations has also soared - while the July figures in Lithuania jumped from 5.8 percent to 16.7 percent; Latvia rate increased from 6.9 percent to 17.4 percent; and Estonia's rate surged from 4.1 percent in to 13.3 percent.