Eurozone unemployment hit a fresh record low, while output from German factories rose in November, boosting hopes of a milder-than-feared economic downturn across the single currency area.
Figures from Eurostat, the European Commission’s statistics bureau, showed that the number of people in the labour market without work fell slightly in November. Eurostat reported 10.849mn workers without jobs, 2,000 less than in the previous month and the lowest since records began. The unemployment rate remained unchanged from October at 6.5 per cent.
Meanwhile, the German federal statistics office reported industrial production increased 0.2 per cent between October and November, a slightly better reading than the 0.1 per cent expansion forecast by economists polled by Reuters.