Eurozone inflation ticks up in November

Eurozone inflation ticked upwards last month on the back of higher costs for transport fuels, heating oil, milk, cheese and eggs, Luxembourg-based Eurostat has said.

Consumer prices across the 19 countries that use the euro currency increased year on year by 1.5% in November compared with 1.4% in October.

Luxembourg's annual inflation was 2%.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has been buying assets, a policy known as quantitative easing (QE), in an attempt to spur inflation to its target of below but close to 2%.

ECB President Mario Draghi reiterated on 14 December that the pace of asset purchases would halve to €30 billion a month from January.

That will continue "until the end of September 2018, or beyond, if necessary" until the bank sees a "sustained adjustment" in inflation towards the target, he said.

In a separate statement, Eurostat said the job vacancy rate in the eurozone was 1.9% in the third quarter of 2017, up from 1.6% in the same period of last year.

In Luxembourg, the job vacancy rate was 1.6% in the three months to end-September, up from 1.5% in the same period of 2016.

The rate was 2.1% in the country's service sector and 0.7% in industry and construction, Eurostat said.