As the European Union's jobless population has been swelling in recent months, leaders from the 27-member states of the bloc are set to tackle the problem of unemployment at the EU summit on June 18-19.

With a proposal called Shared Commitment for Employment, put forward by the executive European Commission, the leaders are expected to debate concrete measures to boost employment.

EU labor market gloomy

As investment has stalled, and exports and internal demand in the EU dampened by the global financial crisis, companies have been forced to slash jobs and production.

As a result, the number of jobless people has been growing in recent months.

Latest data from the EU statistics agency Eurostat show that more than 1.9 million jobs were lost in the first quarter of this year in the EU, meaning the employment rate fell by 0.8 percent quarter-on-quarter, the sharpest drop since 1995 when records began to be kept.

At the same time, more than 1.2 million jobs were lost in the 16-nation Eurozone.

The seasonally-adjusted jobless rate in the Eurozone soared in April to a nine-year high of 9.2 percent from 8.9 percent in March.

In the EU, the unemployment rate rose to 8.6 percent in April from March's 8.4 percent, the highest since January 2006. It was 6.8 percent in April 2008.

Eurostat said about 20.825 million people in the EU, of which 14.579 million were in the euro area, were unemployed in April, the number of people unemployed was 556,000 more in the EU and 396,000 more in the euro area than in March.

The European Commission revised up in May its forecast for this year's Eurozone unemployment to 9.9 percent from 9.3 percent it forecast in January, expecting it to rise further to 11.5 percent next year.

The EU business federation, Business Europe, which represents more than 20 million European companies, predicted that around 4.5 million people may be out of work in 2009.

Measures to be taken

The hikes in unemployment has sent shock waves in the EU and the Eurozone as it could further dampen consumer spending and delay economic recovery.

The commission put forward on June 3 the proposal of Shared Commitment for Employment, putting the fight against unemployment, enhancement of job creation and the upgrade of worker skills as its top objectives. It proposed to earmark 19 billion euros from the European Social Fund (ESF) in the 2009-2010 period to assist EU member states to put in place rapid reaction packages focusing on job creation.