Eurozone unemployment falls below 10% for first time since April 2011

Brussels: Unemployment in the eurozone has fallen below the symbolic mark of 10 percent for the first time since April 2011, EU data showed on Thursday.

The Eurostat statistics agency said the jobless rate in the 19-nation eurozone fell to 9.8 percent in October, driven by falls in France and Italy. 

The September rate was revised to 9.9 percent from the 10 percent first given last month. 

The outcome was much lower than estimated in a survey of analysts by Bloomberg which put October unemployment unchanged at 10 percent.

One of the lowest jobless rate was in powerhouse Germany, at 4.1 percent, while the highest rates were in debt-laden Greece at 23.4 percent and Spain with 19.2 percent. 

Unemployment in the full 28-nation EU fell to 8.3 percent in October from 8.4 percent in September, Eurostat said.

Unemployment in the single currency bloc hit a record high of 12.1 percent during the worst of the debt crisis.

The improvement since then has been painfully slow, with the economy still well short of the 7.5 percent jobless rate seen before the 2007-08 financial crash.

By headcount, there were some 15.9 million people without jobs in the eurozone in October, down 190,000 from September and 1.8 million fewer compared with October 2015.