The eurozone economy grew faster than expected in the third quarter and unemployment fell to an almost nine-year low, but consumer inflation slowed again in October after two months of faster rises, first estimates and data showed today.

The European Union's statistics office Eurostat estimated that the gross domestic product of the 19 countries sharing the euro grew 0.6% in July-September from the previous three months and was 2.5% higher than in the same period of 2016.

The economic growth helped bring down eurozone unemployment to the lowest level since January 2009, beating market expectations.

The unemployment rate fell to 8.9% of the workforce or 14.513 million people in September from a downwardly revised 9%, or 14.609 million, in August.

Among the member states, the lowest unemployment rates in September 2017 were recorded in the Czech Republic (2.7%), Germany (3.6%) and Malta (4.1%). The highest unemployment rates were observed in Greece (21.0% in July 2017) and Spain (16.7%).

But consumer price growth in October eased to 1.4% year-on-year, a Eurostat estimate showed, from 1.5% in the previous two months.

This was mainly because of slower growth of energy prices, which rose 3% year-on-year in October, slowing from 3.9% in September, offsetting equally volatile unprocessed food prices which rose 2.8% after 1.5% in September.

Measured without these two most volatile components, inflation slowed to 1.1% in October from 1.3% in September.

The European Central Bank wants to keep the headline inflation number below, but close to 2% over a two-year horizon and last week decided to extend its government bond buying programme that pumps cash into the banking sector, although to reduce it in size.