Euro zone growth downgraded but employment holding up

Reuters

Thu, May 15, 2025, 2:01 AM 1 min read

FRANKFURT (Reuters) -The euro portion system grew slower successful the archetypal 4th than initially estimated but employment held up well, indicating that the bloc keeps creating jobs contempt years of anaemic expansion, information from Eurostat showed connected Thursday.

Gross home merchandise successful the archetypal 3 months grew by 0.3%, beneath an archetypal estimation for 0.4%, but that was inactive an betterment connected erstwhile 4th arsenic manufacture yet expanded and employment maturation besides picked up.

Compared with a twelvemonth earlier, the bloc's system expanded by 1.2%, the aforesaid arsenic 3 months earlier, broadly successful enactment with what the ECB considers the bloc's potential.

While the euro portion has consistently underperformed the U.S. successful caller years, the 0.3% quarterly maturation complaint is acold amended than the 0.3% contraction reported successful the U.S., which successful large portion was a reflection of surging imports up of tariffs.

Euro portion employment, meanwhile, expanded by 0.3% compared with the erstwhile quarter, the highest fig successful 4 quarters, apt easing fears that anemic maturation could yet punctual firms to commencement shedding workers.

Unemployment has been holding astatine grounds lows each year, confounding immoderate expectations that, with nary imaginable for a meaningful rebound successful growth, firms could reassess their plans to support hanging connected to workers.

Among the bloc's biggest economies, Germany grew by 0.2%, France by 0.1%, Italy by 0.3% and Spain by 0.6% compared to the erstwhile quarter.

(Reporting by Balazs Koranyi; Editing by Alex Richardson)