Eurozone unemployment rate ticks lower in August

The eurozone unemployment rate unexpectedly ticked a little lower in August, according to data released by Eurostat on Monday.

The unemployment rate dipped to 7.4% from 7.5% in July, beating expectations for it to remain unchanged and marking the lowest level since May 2008.

In the EU28 group of nations, the unemployment rate came in at 6.2% in August, down from 6.3% in July and marking the lowest rate since the start of the EU monthly unemployment series in January 2000.

Compared with July, the number of people unemployed in the eurozone and the EU28 fell by 115,000 and 111,000, respectively.

Jack Allen-Reynolds, senior Europe economist at Capital Economics, said: "Eurozone employment growth looks set to slow over the rest of this year, and remain subdued in 2020. So we expect wage growth to weaken too, eventually prompting the European Central Bank to loosen policy again."