In the second quarter of 2020, seasonally adjusted GDP decreased by 11.8% in the euro area and by 11.4% in the European Union compared to the previous quarter, according to the latest estimates released by the statistical office of the European Union, Eurostat, on Tuesday 8 September.
“These were by far the sharpest declines observed since the time series started in 1995”, Eurostat recalls in a news release. During the first quarter of 2020, GDP declined by 3.7% in the euro area and by 3.3% in the EU.
Among Member States for which data is available, Spain (-18.5%) recorded the largest fall in GDP with respect to the previous quarter, followed by Croatia (-14.9%), Hungary (-14.5%), Greece (-14.0%), Portugal (-13.9%) and France (-13.8%).
Employment. The latest figures confirm the upward trend in unemployment. The number of persons employed fell by 2.9% in the euro area and by 2.7% in the EU in the second quarter of 2020 compared with the previous quarter.
According to Eurostat data, the Covid-19 pandemic would have caused a total of 5.1 million job losses in the euro area (-3.2%) and 6.1 million (-2.9%) in the EU compared to the highest employment levels observed in the fourth quarter of 2019. These are the lowest levels since the first quarter of 2017 for both zones, the statistical office points out.
See: https://bit.ly/3jVymBF (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)