The Eurozone unemployment rate rose to 9.7 per cent in September and consumer prices in the 16-nation area fell for a fifth month running in October, the European statistics office Eurostat said.

The jobless rate was up from 9.6 per cent in August, while unemployment in the European Union as a whole also went up from 9.1 to 9.2 per cent - its highest level since comparable records began to be kept in 2000.

Eurostat said 22.123 million people in the EU were now out of work.

Consumer prices in the eurozone meanwhile fell 0.1 per cent in October on a 12-month comparison, following drops of 0.1 per cent in June, 0.7 per cent in July, 0.2 per cent in August and 0.3 per cent in September, Eurostat said.

Last year's bout of inflation has given way to falling prices amid the worst recession in Europe since World War II. Economists expect deflation, which can wreak havoc in an economy, to be reversed over the next few months.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.