GDP slows down in the euro area and falls in the EU in the fourth quarter of 2022

He GDP of the countries in the area euro remained stable and that of the whole of the European Union it fell 0.1% in the fourth quarter of 2022 compared to the third, the European statistical office, Eurostat, reported on Wednesday.

Both rates are one tenth of a percentage lower than what this body had initially estimated for the last three months of the year, which placed the euro area with a 0.1% increase in GDP and the community bloc as a whole without changes compared to the period between July and September 2022.

In the third quarter of 2022, the GDP had grown by 0.4% in both the euro area and the EU, while in the year-on-year comparison, the GDP of the euro area posted a rise of 1.8% in the single currency area and 1.7% in the EU compared to the same period in 2022.

In 2022 as a whole, seasonally adjusted annual GDP growth in the euro area was 3.5% in both the euro area and the 27 countries, after the previous estimate by Eurostat pointed to an increase of 3.6% for the European Union in the whole of the year.

Compared to 2021, the increase in 2022 had been 5.3% in the euro area and 5.4% in the community bloc.

Among the Member States for which Eurostat data is available, the largest increases in GDP in the last three months of the year occurred in Greece (1.4%), Malta (1.2%) and Cyprus (1.1%), while the largest falls were in Poland (-2.4%), Estonia (-1.6%) and Finland (-0.6%).

The European statistical office also includes an increase of 0.3% in the number of people employed in both the euro zone and the EU in the last three months of the year compared to the previous three.

In turn, compared to the fourth quarter of the previous year, employment increased by 1.5% in the euro area and by 1.3% in the EU, while the whole of 2022 recorded an increase in employment of 2.2% in the euro area. and 2% in the EU according to the first estimate of Eurostat.

Source: EFE