Eurozone unemployment just plunged at the fastest pace in over 8 years
The eurozone just had its best quarter for unemployment since the beginning of 2007, according to official statistics showing September's numbers, which came out on Friday.
The unemployment rate fell to 10.8%, below August's 10.9%. 414,000 fewer people are out of work in comparison to the second quarter, the largest amount since the first quarter of 2007, according to IHS chief UK economist Howard Archer.
Though it fell back to the lowest level since 2011, unemployment rate is still high, around 2 percentage points above the average of the pre-crisis years:
Headline inflation came in as expected, completely flat for October, compared to a -0.1% reading in August. Core inflation, which strips out the most volatile items, like fuel and food, came in at 1%.
The European Central Bank hinted at its October meeting that it'll announce more quantitative easing, in an attempt to boost the modest growth levels and lift inflation.
Jessica Hinds of Capital Economics thinks that today's figures won't put it off:
While the euro-zone's unemployment rate has edged down over the past couple of years, progress has been slow. And surveys of employment intentions still suggest that the labour market recovery will continue at a sluggish pace and certainly too slow to boost wages substantially. Accordingly, while the improvements in today's data are welcome, they are not significant enough to ease the pressure on the ECB to increase its monetary policy support in December.