Eurozone Consumer Prices Remain Flat in October 2015

The eurozone inflation returned to zero in October 2015 from (-0.1%) in the previous month.

According to Eurostat estimates, price growth in food, alcohol and tobacco increased slightly, while energy prices were still considerably lower than last year.

The EU statistics agency also estimated the unemployment rate in the 19 countries that use the euro was 10.8% in September, down from 10.9% in August.

The rate for the 28 EU members was 9.3%, down from 9.4% the month before.

The eurozone rate is the lowest since January 2012 while the rate for the whole EU is the lowest since September 2009.

Greece had the highest rate at 21.6%. The country is expected to be higher but has yet to report September figures, while Germany had the lowest at 4.5%.

The inflation figures are an early, flash estimate from Eurostat and so are not broken down by member state.

It does give broad indications of which groups of products have gone up or down.

Food, alcohol and tobacco prices were estimated to be rising 1.5% in October, compared with 1.4% in September.

Energy prices were falling an annual 8.7%, compared with 8.9% a month earlier.

Services prices were up 1.3% compared with 1.2% the month before.

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi suggested this month that he might be prepared to extend the bank’s program of quantitative easing given the low levels of eurozone inflation.