Unemployment in the eurozone has dropped to a record low, at 6.5 percent in October, the EU’s Eurostat statistics office said Thursday.
The reading — the lowest since Eurostat started compiling jobless figures in April 1998 — was an indicator that the economies of the 19 EU nations using the euro had bounced back after the Covid pandemic.
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was markedly less than the 7.3 percent recorded a year ago.
Eurostat estimated that, for the entire 27-nation European Union, 12.95 million adults were unemployed in October — or 6.0 percent of the active population — with 10.87 million of them in the eurozone.
While all OECD economies, with the exception of former EU member Britain, have recovered to their pre-pandemic size, global headwinds are stalling the recovery.
The eurozone is likely to tip towards recession within weeks, according to the European Commission.
Inflation is running hot, despite falling back in the latest reading on Wednesday, at 10 percent — above the European Central Bank’s two-percent target — largely because of high energy prices spurred by the fallout of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
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