The European Union Statistics Office (Eurostat) confirmed, on Tuesday, that the growth of the eurozone economy slowed in the last three months of 2022, and employment rose more than expected, which confirms the flexibility of the labor market.
Eurostat stated that the gross domestic product in the region’s 19 countries grew by 0.1 percent on a quarterly basis at the end of 2022, and by an increase of 1.9 percent on an annual basis.
This is in line with the initial estimate on January 31 which showed that the Eurozone had avoided a technical recession that was expected earlier.
The eurozone economy grew by 0.3 percent in the third quarter of 2022.
An employment estimate showed that the number of people finding jobs in the euro zone rose 0.4 percent on a quarterly basis, twice as fast as expected by economists polled by Archyde.com, despite slowing economic growth.
Eurostat added that employment growth was 1.5 percent year-on-year in the last three months of 2022.
For the current year, the European Union raised its growth forecasts for the eurozone for the year 2023, as mild winter weather and high levels of natural gas storage help ease the energy crisis, along with the resilience of the labor market.
And the European Union Commission said yesterday that it expects the euro zone economy to grow by 0.9 percent this year instead of the previous forecast of 0.3 percent, noting that the region will avoid recession by a small margin this winter.
Brussels cut its overall inflation forecast for next year to 5.6% from 6.1% previously forecast, but warned that “economic headwinds remain strong”.
