The unemployment rate in the eurozone reached a 15-year high in March at 10.9%, up from the previous record set just a month earlier at 10.8% (source: The Guardian , May 2, 2012). This is the highest unemployment rate since the inception of the eurozone . March 2012 marks the 11th month in a row that the unemployment rate has increased among the 17 nations that make up the eurozone. The European Central Bank (ECB) kept interest rates at one percent at its last meeting saying that its policies need to change so that growth is given as much emphasis as austerity. (It would have been nice if the ECB would have thought of that a year ago, before hundreds of thousands of more people joined the unemployment lines.) I spoke about the quickly deteriorating conditions in Spain recently in these pages. It is worse than most could have imagined. Spain holds the highest unemployment rate in the eurozone. As of March 2012, almost one in four people is unemployed: 24.1%. Spain also has the second-highest youth unemployment at 51.2%. One in two young people under the age of 25 is unemployed in Spain…an absolutely mind-numbing statistic. In Greece, the latest unemployment figures available are for January. Its unemployment rate stands at 21.7%. I’m going to list the youth unemployment rates for March 2012 for the eurozone (except for Greece, whose latest statistics are for January), so my readers understand that some of these countries are placing their youth in a severely dangerous position of being a lost generation. Or will this be the center of the social unrest and the reason why the eurozone will unravel? Country Youth Unemployment Rate Greece 51.2% Spain 51.1% Portugal 36.1% Italy 35.9% Ireland 30.3% France 21.8% Germany 7.9 % (Source: Reuters) Going back to the regular unemployment rates…the unemployment rate in Portugal is 15.3%, while the unemployment rate in Ireland is 14.5%. Some analysts have been saying Germany would be able to decouple from the rest of the eurozone and experience strong economic growth. I don’t but this. In fact, I believe Germany’s economy is contracting while its manufacturing numbers continue to deteriorate. Germany cannot decouple from the rest of the eurozone as much as the U.S. can decouple from the global economic slowdown. The big question on my readers’ minds: How bad will unemployment eventually be here in the U.S. as world economic growth falters? The pressures in the eurozone are mounting. Something will have to give soon, as the situation is clearly unsustainable. This weekend, France took a big step to the left and ushered in a socialist government led by new French President Francois Hollande. The …