25/09/2002 (Agence Europe) - According to datea released by Eurosat on Wednesday, total hourly labour costs1 in the whole economy of the euro-zone grew by 3.7% in the second quarter of 2002 compared to the second quarter of 2001. In the first quarter of 2002 the increase was a revised 4.0%4. For the EU15 the rise was 3.7% in the second quarter of 2002, the same as in the previous quarter. The smallest annual rises were in Germany and Spain (2.4% each) and Portugal (2.5%) and the biggest in Italy (4.4%). In industry, hourly labour costs rose by 3.1% in the euro-zone and by 3.2% in the EU15. Among Member States for which data are available, the smallest annual increases in costs were in Germany (2.0%) and Spain (2.6%), while the biggest increase was registered in Denmark (4.0%). For the second quarter 2002 Eurostat shows that the biggest increase in wages, which cover most of the total labour costs, was in France (4.7%) and the smallest in Spain (1.8%).