Eurozone industrial output falls 1.4% in October, a sign recession is worsening

Industrial production across the 17 European Union countries that use the euro unexpectedly slumped in October.

Eurostat, the EU’s statistics office, says Wednesday that industrial production fell by a monthly 1.4 per cent, in contrast to expectations of a modest 0.2 per cent increase.

Coming in the wake of a surprisingly big drop in retail sales during the month, the figures are likely to reinforce expectations that the eurozone recession has deepened heading into the final quarter of the year.

The eurozone fell back into a mild recession in the third quarter.