Source: Sharecast
The annual change in the consumer price index across the single-currency region was 2.2% last month, up from 2.1% in October, according to data on Tuesday from Eurostat.
This surprised analysts who had expected no change, with the year-on-year rate of inflation hitting its joint highest level since February.
Services inflation picked up to 3.5% from 3.4% the previous month, while energy prices fell 0.5% after dropping 0.9% the previous month.
Meanwhile, inflation rates for food, alcohol and tobacco were stable at 2.5%, and unchanged for non-energy industrial goods at 0.6%.
The core rate, which excludes volatile items like energy, food, alcohol and tobacco, was unchanged at 2.4%.
"Given the benign projections, as well as energy cost targeting measures across major member states, we do not believe that this is a notable deviation from ECB's target of 2.0%, and is therefore not likely to move the Governing Council off its current rate stance," said analysts at TD Securities in a note.
The highest rates of inflation were seen in Estonia (4.7%, up from 4.5% the month before), Croatia (4.3%, up from 4.0%) and Austria (4.1%, up from 4.0%), while the lower rates were registered in Cyprus (steady at 0.2%), France (steady at 0.8%) and Italy (1.1%, down from 1.3%).
Eurostat also announced that the unemployment rate across the eurozone held steady at 6.4% in October, under the consensus forecast for a decrease to 6.3%.