- IHS Global Insight
Unemployment across the Euro zone declined slightly in February, but the gauge remained well above the pre-crisis level of 7.5%. According to Eurostat, the jobless rate in the 19-nation bloc slid to 10.3% following an upwardly revised 10.4% recorded in January, falling to the lowest level since August 2011. Although the unemployment rate improvement is encouraging, sharp disparities remain across the region with Spain and Greece suffering from unhealthy high unemployment rate, which exceeds 20%. At the same time, the lowest level of joblessness was reported in Germany at 4.3% and the Czech Republic at 4.5%. In February, Euro zone companies added 39,000 jobs to their payrolls, pushing down the number of people out of work to 16.63 million. Euro zone job creation is still hindered by a fragile economic recovery, which according to the European Central Bank is likely to continue in the months ahead, albeit "not as fast as hoped."
A separate report showed investor morale improved in April. The Sentix index climbed to 5.7 for April, up from 5.5 in March. Economists, however, had predicted a stronger upturn to 7.0. The current conditions sub-index decreased to 6.0 from 8.3 in March, while expectations sub-gauge jumped to 5.5 from 2.8.
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