More than 1.9 million jobs were lost in the first quarter of this year in the 27-nation European Union, the steepest fall on record, official figures showed on Monday.

The number of people hired in the EU dropped by 0.8 percent in the first quarter compared with the previous quarter, the sharpest drop since 1995 when record started, said the EU statistics agency Eurostat.

The tally of people employed in the 16-nation euro zone fell by 0.8 percent as well quarter-on-quarter, meaning that 1.2 million jobs were lost.

Eurostat said that around 223.8 million people were hired in the EU in the first three month of this year, 146 million of them in the euro zone.

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

Damped export and internal demand in the EU resulted from the global financial crisis forced companies to slash jobs and production.

(Xinhua News Agency June 16, 2009)