Jobless rate in eurozone lowest since 2008 – Eurostat

Unemployment in the 19 eurozone countries fell to its lowest level in nearly a decade as the region’s economy benefits from waning worries over the currency union’s problems with too much debt, AP reports. The jobless rate fell to 8.5 percent in February from 8.6 percent the month before, the European Union’s statistics agency Eurostat said Wednesday. The proportion out of work is the lowest since December 2008, shortly after the bankruptcy of US investment bank Lehman Brothers plunged the world into a financial crisis and many parts of the global economy into deep recessions, AP said. The fall in the rate came as the number of jobless fell by 141,000 to below 14 million. While the economy expanded by a decade-high rate of 2.5 percent in 2017, inflation remains benign.