Italy's unemployment rate 11.5%, lowest since December 2012

Italy's unemployment rate went down to 11.5 percent in October, the lowest it has been since 2012, reported the national statistics agency Tuesday.

In a report by Bloomberg, this is even lower than the 11.7 percent that economists estimated. Unemployment rate in September was 11.6 percent. According to the national statistics agency IStat, the country's economy went up by 0.2 percent in the third quarter, while inflation slowed down by 0.1 percent in November.

ANSA Med has reported that unemployment rate in Italy went down by 39,000 month-on-month on October. Meanwhile, there was a 13.9 percent increase in workers that are 50 years old and above from January 2013 to October 2015. This means there are 900,000 more employed people aged 50 and above.

According to a report from the Financial Times, the Italian Prime Minister has been fighting to reform the weak labour markets in the country by easing restrictions on big firms that are firing employees and giving temporary tax breaks to firms that offers permanent contracts to their workers.

On Finance Minister Pier Carlo Padoan said Monday that the current levels of inflation is not satisfactory since higher rates would reduce the country's public debt by as much as 2.2 trillion euros or $2.3 trillion. He confirmed the government's forecast of a 0.9 percent real growth in the country's economy by 2015.

However, unemployment rates among the youth in Italy increased by 39.8 percent in October, up from the 39.4 percent in September. It has been below 40 percent for four straight months.

Istat reported Tuesday that the country's GDP went up 0.2 percent in this year's third quarter. Italy's GDP in the third-quarter is 0.8 percent higher than it was in the same period last year.

Padoan acknowledged the recent terror attacks in Paris, and hopes that Italy's recovery will continue despite it. He said that he believes confidence will be stronger than fear.