Eurozone Unemployment Falls to 12.1 Percent

November 29, 2013 Share Print 0

The eurozone’s unemployment rate has fallen for the first time since early 2011, according to official data.

The jobless rate across the 17 countries using the euro currency fell to 12.1% in October, the first fall since February 2011, the European Union’s statistics office Eurostat said.

About 19 million people are out of work across the region.

Meanwhile, the annual rate of consumer inflation rose from 0.7% to 0.9%.

The European Central Bank (ECB) aims to keep inflation just below 2% – the level it deems right for growth.

The data indicates that the fragile eurozone economy may be gradually improving, although there are big disparities between individual countries.

The unemployment rate in Spain and Greece is about 27%, for example, while Austria’s is 5%.

via BBC

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Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse

Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.