LONDON
Unemployment across the 19-country eurozone fell in November to its lowest level in nearly nine years, official figures showed Tuesday, in the latest sign that the currency bloc’s economy headed into the new year in robust shape.
Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics agency, said the jobless rate adjusted for seasonal factors fell to 8.7 percent in November from 8.8 percent the previous month. That’s the lowest rate since January 2009, when the eurozone was reeling from a deep recession following the global financial crisis.
The agency said the number of unemployed fell by 107,000 during the month, taking the total down to 14.26 million.
Unemployment across the region has been falling steadily over the past year as the eurozone recovery has gathered steam — figures later this month are expected to show that economic growth picked up in the fourth quarter, possibly to an impressive 0.8 percent.
Though the unemployment rate has been on a downward trend in the eurozone, it remains more than double the U.S. rate of 4.1 percent. That’s largely due to the fact that the recovery since the Great Recession has been far slower in the eurozone because the region also endured a debt crisis that led to many countries, notably Greece, enacting huge budget cuts.
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