Italy October jobless rate hits new record high

Nov 28 (Reuters) - Italy's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate reached a new record high in October, jumping to 13.2 percent from a revised figure of 12.9 percent in September, data on Friday showed.

The September rate was revised up from a previously reported 12.6 percent.

The unemployment rate, the highest since ISTAT began reporting the series in 1977, underlined the deep problems facing the eurozone's third-largest economy, which is heading for a third successive year of contraction.

Youth unemployment, measuring job-seekers between 15 and 24 years old, was 43.3 percent in October, up from 42.7 percent the previous month and just shy of the record 43.5 percent touched in June. The rate has doubled since 2008, when the global economic crisis erupted.

The data came just days after Prime Minister Matteo Renzi won a key parliamentary vote on his long-heralded Jobs Act, intended to free up labour rules to make job creation more attractive to employers.

But even if the law is adopted within the next few weeks as the government intends, it is not expected to produce any near-term turnaround in jobless numbers which have grown inexorably during Italy's longest postwar slump.

The employment rate was 55.6 percent compared with a revised 55.8 percent in September.

(Reporting by James Mackenzie; Rome Newsroom +39 06 8522 4350)