Burgos, famed for its vast Gothic cathedral, has fared better than elsewhere, with just 16 per cent unemployment, almost 7 points less than the national average.

Ian Gracie, Wimpey Construction's director for Scotland, quotes a figure of 45 per cent architectural unemployment.

What a find - and what a steal its prices are, as they are across the Cadiz region (currently suffering 20 per cent unemployment).

Life is as hard as ever, with 27 per cent unemployment.

If everybody who bought a foreign car in the last ten years had bought a British one instead, there wouldn't be seventeen per cent unemployment in this area.

"People were expecting a lot from democracy, but there was 20 per cent unemployment and 20 per cent inflation."

They were a species created by ninety-five per cent unemployment in an industry which nevertheless remained capable of crowning a tiny few with notoriety and huge wealth.

With Serbia still starved of outside investment and with 30 per cent unemployment and little in the way of social security, you had to be resourceful, he said.

We have got real ones - Aids, 40 per cent unemployment, the highest rape and murder rates on the planet.

But it was a difficult period of transition for a country with eighty per cent unemployment.