Italian official unemployment rate at 11.2pc

MILAN: The Italian unemployment rate edged up by 0.1 percentage points to 11.2 percent in December, a first official estimate showed on Friday.

The number of people registered as seeking work has risen by nearly 20.0 percent over the past 12 months.

The rate is at the highest level since the statistics institute Istat began publishing this monthly statistic, and on a three-month basis the rate was the highest since 1999.

On a 12-month comparison, the rate in December showed a rise of 1.8 percentage points, and this was in line with expectations among economists.

On an adjusted basis, the number of people seeking work rose to 2.875 million in December, an increase of 4,000 in the month and of 474,000 or 19.7 percent over 12 months.

Unemployment in Italy has risen sharply since the middle of 2011 when action to reduce public spending, raise taxes and reform the economy to avert a debt crisis began to push the economy into recession.

The government hopes that the economy will begin to recover this year but the continuing rise of unemployment is feeding resentment among Italians towards politicians three weeks before legislative elections planned for February 24-25.