BRUSSELS, March 8 (Reuters) - The euro zone failed to
register any growth quarter-on-quarter in the final three months
of 2022, European statistics agency said on Tuesday, slightly
revising down both its GDP and employment growth numbers,
although the latter remained strong.
Euro zone economic growth was 0.0% in the fourth quarter
compared with the third and 1.8% from a year earlier, Eurostat
said in a statement. That compared with flash estimates of 0.1%
and 1.9% published on February 14.
The revisions still confirmed that the euro zone narrowly
avoided the technical recession that had previously been
expected.
Greece, Malta and Cyprus all registered quarterly growth of
more than 1%, with declines seen in Germany, Estonia, Italy and
Lithuania.
Eurostat said that public expenditure contributed 0.2
percentage points, changes in inventories 0.1 points and net
trade 1.0 points. The negatives were household spending and
gross fixed capital formation.
Eurostat also revised down the figure for employment growth
in the euro zone to 0.3% quarter-on-quarter from a previously
reported 0.4%. The year-on-year number was 1.5%, in line with
earlier estimates.
This pushed the total number of people with jobs to 165
million, 3.6 million more than at the end of 2019, just before
the COVID-19 pandemic struck.
Strong employment growth highlights how tight the labour
market is and signals a problem for the ECB in its fight to
bring inflation back to 2% from double digit territory last
autumn.
A recession had been expected to boost the jobless rate,
cooling the labour market and keeping a lid on wages. But firms,
which struggled to rehire workers after the pandemic, appear to
be hanging onto staff even through a slowdown.
For further details of Eurostat data click on: (Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop)
