BRUSSELS: One in 10 workers across Europe’s core euro currency area is now unemployed, according to new European Union data issued on Friday that showed Spain bearing the brunt of a jobless recovery.

The human cost of structural economic adjustment post-recession could be seen when the seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate for the 16 euro countries hit a miserable 10 percent in December.

The EU’s Eurostat agency estimated that an extra 87,000 people fell out of work in the weeks before Christmas — down from the 102,000 people joining the benefit queues in November.

It was the highest rate since the currency was launched a decade ago and up from a downwards-revised 9.9 percent in November.

Initial figures for November published earlier this month had pegged the euro zone rate at 10 percent.

Across the 27-nation EU, the rate hit 9.6 percent in December, up from 9.5 percent and corresponding to 163,000 more people unemployed.

The statistics agency says more than 23 million people were out of work across the world’s biggest open trading bloc, 15.763 million of whom were in the euro zone.

That meant that in the last year, 4.628 million people joined the ranks of the jobless, 2.787 million of whom were in the core euro area.

Spain’s rate hit a massive 19.5 percent, although only very slightly up from the previous month.

Separate data from Madrid showed that the unemployment rate in Europe’s fifth-largest economy soared to 18.83 percent throughout the fourth quarter of 2009, with a total of 4.326 million people out of work, up more than one million from a year ago.

Experts have repeatedly expressed fears of a “double-dip” recession on the Iberian peninsula — itself struggling with huge deficits way above EU targets.

The news came on top of rising inflation — with separate official figures showing the annual rate of price rises hitting 1.0 percent, at a time when the euro is losing ground against the dollar.

The value of the euro has slipped considerably from a November peak of $1.50 to currently trade at under $1.40.

Meanwhile, euro zone lending remains muted even though economic activity is picking up again, underscoring concern over the strength of the 16-nation bloc’s recovery.

Actual bank lending to businesses and households was stable in December, the European Central Bank said Friday, while a bank survey showed credit conditions were still tight, something that could hinder a strong rebound.

The pace of private sector lending was essentially unchanged in December from the same month a year earlier following three months of declines, the ECB said.

Lending contracted by 0.7 percent in November and by 0.8 percent in October.

The ECB’s M3 money supply indicator, which measures cash, deposits and some other financial items, fell meanwhile by 0.2 percent from December 2008, after a drop of 0.3 percent in November, its first ever.