“Employment down by 0.1% in euro areaâ€
That was the headline of a news release on Friday from Eurostat, the European Statistical Agency. The figures were for the second quarter, compared to the first. (Speed of release is not a hallmark of European data, particularly since seemingly everyone goes on vacation in August.)
My first reaction was to think that would pour cold water on the growing confidence in Europe, which I discuss in my Off the Charts column for this week.
But everything is relative.
Here is how The Financial Times reported the news:
People in the eurozone in work fell by 0.1 per cent in the second quarter â€" showing a slower rate of decline than recorded in the first three months of the year, and boosting confidence in a European economic recovery.
Just as parents who feared their child was going to fail may be relieved by a report card full of “D’s,†what seems to matter in Europe is that things are getting worse more slowly. Call it a second derivative recovery. This is the eighth consecutive quarterly decline in employment, but it is the smallest of the eight.
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