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Unemployment in the eurozone dropped for the first time in almost three years in October, falling to 12.1 per cent, according to data released on Friday.
The crisis-plagued currency bloc managed to pull out of recession earlier this year, but stubbornly high unemployment rates have continued to cause concern.
The eurozone experienced its last decline in the jobless rate in February 2011. Analysts had predicted the latest figure to stay level at 12.2 per cent.
In October, 19.298 million people were out of work in the 17-member currency bloc, according to the EU’s statistics agency Eurostat, a drop of 61,000 from the previous month.
Austria and Germany again posted the lowest jobless rates, at around 5 per cent, while Greece and Spain continued to top the list, with unemployment figures remaining above 26 per cent.
Those out of work in the eurozone included 3.577 million people under the age of 25, making the rate for that age group 24.4 per cent, according to Eurostat.
Unemployment in the 28-member EU fell by 75,000 people to a total of 26.654 million, but this was not enough to bring the rate down from the previous month’s figure of 10.9 per cent.
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