Eurozone labour market has held up much better than its US counterpart in the Great Recession
Oct 28th, 2009 | By Finfacts Ireland Business & Finance Portal | Category: News worldwide
In the Great Recession so far, the Eurozone labour market has held up much better than its US counterpart. While the US unemployment rate has risen by more than 5 percentage points (pp) in the course of the recession to 9.8% of the labour force, according to the latest data point, its Eurozone counterpart has only increased by about 2pp, albeit reaching roughly the same level at 9.7% in Q3. This discrepancy is even more striking as Eurozone output contracted much more sharply than in the US, where the output reduction from the peak was about one-third bigger.