ROME (BNO NEWS) -- Italy's youth unemployment rate has climbed to its highest rate in almost eight years, the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) said on Monday.

The jobless rate among people between 15 and 24 years of age increased 1.3 percent from the previous month to 29.3 percent in September. This is the highest it has been since the beginning of 2004, the agency said in a report.

Overall, the unemployment rate increased from 8 percent in August to 8.3 percent in September, an increase of 0.3 percent. The total number of unemployed people in September was 2.08 million, up 76,000 from the previous month.

Italian President Giorgio Napolitano recently said youth unemployment is "central" to the social unrest in Italy. He singled out the financial sector and the "political class", which were targets of an initially peaceful protest in mid-October that drew an estimated 200,000 to Rome and ended in riots.

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