MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

EU unemployment soars to 9.2%: 22 million out of work

Consumer prices fell for the fifth month in a row

Figures from the Europe Union's statistics office show that consumer prices in the Euro zone fell for the fifth month in a row in October while the unemployment rate for September rose again.

Eurostat said the jobless rate rose from 9.6% in August to 9.7%, while unemployment in the EU as a whole also went up from 9.1% to 9.2%. This was the highest EU level since comparable records began to be kept in 2000. Eurostat said more than 22 million people in the EU were now out of work.

Meanwhile, consumer prices fell at an annual rate of 0.1% in October, though this fall was smaller than in the previous three months.

Last year's bout of inflation has given way to falling prices amid the worst recession in Europe since World War II though economists expect this to be reversed over the next few months.

Latvia has the EU highest jobless rate at 19.7% followed closely by Spain with 19.3% and Ireland, 13% while the lowest rate of 3.6% was recorded in the Netherlands.

Job losses have been particularly acute among the under-25s. Eurostat, who released the figures, said the youth unemployment rate in the Euro zone had soared to 20.1% in September from 15.7% a year earlier.

In September, the European Commission said the Euro-zone economy was emerging from recession, while Germany and France exited recession in the second quarter of this year.

But the benefits of recovery have yet to filter through to labour markets. Most economists expect the jobless numbers to keep rising into next year.