A record 10.9 percent of the Czech work force was unemployed last month, with 570,000 people unable to find a job, the government said

The dismal employment report was released less than two months before the Czech Republic joins the European Union. The Czech economy still struggles to overcome it's communist past and needs to restructure obsolete industries and adapt to the new European Union markets. Unemployment runs as high as 25 percent in some parts of Bohemia and Moravia in the industrial north that have been especially hard hit by restructuring of the steel and coal industry. The Czech Republic is one of the most successful candidates for EU membership from the former Soviet bloc. Its economy performed steadily during the past decade, with growth predicted at 2.8 percent in 2003 and inflation at 1 percent. Despite largely favorable economic numbers, the unemployment rate was up 0.1 percent from January, to the highest it has been since the communist regime collapsed in 1989.