22 million now jobless in EU
Friday, 30 October 2009 11:55Figures from the EU's statistics office show that consumer prices in the euro zone fell for the fifth month in a row in October, while the unemployment rate for September rose again.
Eurostat said the jobless rate rose from 9.6% in August to 9.7%, while unemployment in the EU as a whole also went up from 9.1% to 9.2%. This was the highest EU level since comparable records began to be kept in 2000. Eurostat said more than 22 million people in the EU were now out of work.
Meanwhile, consumer prices fell at an annual rate of 0.1% in October, though this fall was smaller than in the previous three months.
Last year's bout of inflation has given way to falling prices amid the worst recession in Europe since World War II, though economists expect this to be reversed over the next few months.
