June 8, 2011
Unemployment in debt-ridden Greece hit new record highs in March as government officials wrangled over tough new austerity measures required to tap the country's rescue funds.
The jobless rate increased to 16.2 percent in March from 15.9 percent in February, the country's statistics agency said Wednesday. The total number of Greeks out of work was 811,340, up 40 percent from a year earlier, when the unemployment rate was 11.6 percent.
March's is the highest level of joblessness recorded since the statistics agency began issuing figures in 2004. The government had projected an overall unemployment rate of 14.5 percent for this year in its 2011 budget.
The situation is expected to get worse as the government imposes yet more austerity measures to meet targets set out in the agreement for Greece's euro110 billion ($161 billion) package of rescue loans.
Cutbacks and tax increases taken over the past year have already led to anger among workers and unions, which has been compounded by the realization that the measures did not produce all of the results they were expected to.
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