Unemployment in the eurozone has dropped to a record low, at 6.5 percent in October, the EU's Eurostat statistics office said Thursday.

The reading, the lowest since Eurostat started compiling jobless figures in April 1998, was an indicator that the economies of the 19 EU nations using the euro had bounced back after the COVID-19 pandemic.

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was less than the 7.3 percent recorded a year ago.

Eurostat estimated that, for the entire 27-nation European Union, 12.95 million adults were unemployed in October, or 6.0 percent of the active population, with 10.87 million in the eurozone.