The eurozone's unemployment rate fell for a second straight month in October to reach its lowest level since the start of 2012, but it remained high relative to other developed economies.
The European Union's statistics agency Tuesday said the unemployment rate across the 19 countries that use the euro dipped to 10.7% from 10.8% in September.
While the number of people without work fell by a further 13,000, that left a total of 17.24 million people unemployed, equivalent to a jobless rate more than twice the 5% recorded in the U.S. That's a sign that there is still plenty of spare capacity in the economy, and that it will be some time before wages rise rapidly enough to push up business costs and consumer prices.
The prospect of persistently weak inflationary pressures means it remains likely that the European Central Bank will provide additional stimulus when its governing council meets Thursday, as participants in financial markets expect.
The decline in the number of people without jobs was spread across many of the eurozone's larger members, including Germany, Spain and Italy. However unemployment rose in France, the eurozone's second-largest member.
Surveys of purchasing managers at manufacturing companies that were conducted in November showed businesses continued to add to their payrolls as activity picked up, although they also showed that businesses cut their selling prices, underlining the difficulties facing the ECB in its efforts to raise the annual rate of inflation to its target of just under 2% from 0.1% in October.
The Eurostat figures confirmed that the eurozone is still failing to create new jobs for younger people, as the unemployment rate for those below 25 years of age rose to 22.3% from 22.2%. In Spain, the youth unemployment rate was 47.7%, while in Italy it was 39.8%.
