Friday 29 November 2013

Good news from Eurozone - rare edition!



In a rare foray into looking at economic measures, here is some more good news for a Friday. Not only do a we have strong housing growth in the UK which is helping prime the recovery, but also even in the sickly Eurozone the two key measures are turning positive.

Firstly, unemployment has fallen by 61,000 - the first time it has fallen since January 2011. That is a long wait, it may yet be a blip, but it should be a good sign that economies are stabilising.

Secondly, inflation has risen from 0.7% to 0.9%. There was a big chance that the Eurozone was headed towards outright deflation - a total disaster for Greece and periphery countries laden with debt.

Even a small rise and trend change is a good thing, if sustained, then growing inflation and falling employment will mean a better year next year. Of course the fundamental issues with the Eurozone have not really been addressed and the whole Euro area will be at risk for years to come with instability at its core, but at least in the short term there maybe respite from a long crisis.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Some cheer but in France the unemployment numbers are only down because of a bit of massage.

Prez Hollande made it a big deal to cut unemployment. Rightly so. Only his solution has been state-backed job creation schemes.

Many of these jobs are uneconomic, they would not exist without the big subsidy. But it helps achieve the headline pledge to cut unemployment. Since they need funding and they take productive capacity out of the economy it could just be making things worse and signalling only the state can create jobs at a time when the public sector needs to shrink.

CityUnslicker said...

sad but true anonymous - here was me trying to be positive!

Sebastian Weetabix said...

Meanwhile, over in the Telegraph, Ambrose E-P reports M3 growth in the Eurozone is down to only 1.5%... And loans to the private sector are actually negative. The crazy Germans are winning... Deflation looms!

dearieme said...

Dutchy Hollande will get them out of the merde, just you wait and see.

Of course he'll probably plunge them into hellfire instead.

Budgie said...

I suspect that their black economies are propping up the club med nations. I do not know France and Spain well enough to say but in Italy one man I know had three jobs, only one of which was taxed. He was not unusual. So their economies are probably bigger than the official statistics indicate.

TheUsualName said...

When business loans go 'negative' thats the killer signal. Death rattle ahoy.