The Eurozone labour market was little changed in November. Following a steeper revised 152,000 fall in October, joblessness dipped just 2,000, its weakest performance outside of September's 23,000 increase since March 2021. The headline unemployment rate was unchanged, in line with the market consensus, at the previous period's 6.5 percent record low.

Regionally, the steady overall rate masked falls in France (7.0 percent after 7.1 percent), Italy (7.8 percent after 7.9 percent) and Spain 12.4 percent after 23.3 percent). Germany (3.0 percent) was again flat.

The November update extends the near-unbroken downtrend in Eurozone unemployment that began back in April 2021. This will be seen by the ECB as confirming a still very tight labour market that poses a real threat to price stability via potentially higher wages. Another interest rate hike in February is essentially a done deal. Today's report leaves the Eurozone's ECDI (27) and ECDI-P (40) well above zero and so indicative of overall economic activity running quite well ahead of market expectations.

Consensus for November's unemployment rate is no change at 6.5 percent.

The unemployment rate measures the number of unemployed as a percentage of the labor force.

Unemployment data are closely monitored by the financial markets. These data give a comprehensive report on the state of the economy and its future direction. A rising unemployment rate can be a warning sign of hard times while a low rate can be a warning of inflation as wages are bid up to attract labor.

Unemployment data are expressed in both a numerical value and as a percentage of the labor force. Generally, the definition of those unemployed follows that of the International Labour Organisation (ILO). It states that an unemployed person is one between the ages of 15 to 74 years of age who was not employed during the reference week, had actively sought work during the past four weeks and was ready to begin working immediately or within two weeks. The unemployment rate is the percentage of unemployed persons over the total number of active persons in the labor market. Active persons are those who are either employed or unemployed.

Eurostat provides an unemployment rate for each EU country as well as for the EMU and EU as a whole. It should be noted that the unemployment rate for a country will frequently differ with that reported by the national statistics agency. That is because of the varying interpretations of the ILO definition by member states and Eurostat.