The executive arm of the European Union has been urged to focus on solving the region's employment problems.

Hungary's candidate to the European Commission (EC) Laszlo Andor has urged the legislative body to reduce the impact of the global economic crisis by implementing policies related to job creation and social affairs in 2010.

Mr Andor was chosen by the Hungarian prime minister Gordon Bajnai last year as the country's nomination for the EC, the Budapest Times reported.

He suggested that crisis management tasks should still be put on the agenda by European governments - with particular focus afforded to the reform of labor laws and pension distributions.

Earlier this week, the Hungarian Central Statistical Office disclosed that the European country's unemployment rate reached 10.5 per cent between September and November 2009, which is up 0.1 per cent from the previous period.

In addition, the official data agency revealed that the total number of unemployed persons totalled 445,000 in the same time-frame, RTT News reported.