Eurozone unemployment rate falls to record-low, beats market expectations

The rate of unemployment in the eurozone fell to a record low, beating market expectations, in a signal that the ailing economy is attempting to revive itself out of the poor state witnessed in the aftermath of the June 23 Brexit vote.

The Eurozone unemployment rate declined to 9.8 percent for October from a revised 9.9 percent for September, which was originally reported as 10.0 percent and was also lower than the consensus forecast of 10.0 percent for the month, data released by statistics agency Eurostat showed Thursday. This was significantly below the 10.6 percent rate for October 2015 and the lowest recorded rate since July 2009.

The rate of youth unemployment was unchanged at 20.7 percent for the month, although this was a decline from 22.2 percent in October 2015. As expected, the lowest rate was recorded in Germany at 4.1 percent with the highest rates at 23.4 percent in Greece and 19.2 percent in Spain.

The steady decline in unemployment will underpin short-term confidence in the economic outlook and will also help support near-term trends in consumer spending, especially as consumer confidence has increased to the highest levels of 2016.

Meanwhile, the market reaction was limited, although EUR/USD ticked fractionally higher and held above the 1.0600 level, while equity markets pared losses, while at 12:00GMT, the FxWirePro's Hourly Euro Strength Index remained neutral at 60.47 (a reading above +75 indicates bullish trend, while that below -75 a bearish trend). For more details, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex