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Eurozone employment up 0.3 pct in Q2

Xinhua, September 16, 2015 Adjust font size:

Seasonally-adjusted employment in 19-country Eurozone in the second quarter rose by 0.3 percent compared with the previous quarter, reaching the highest level in four years, official data showed on Tuesday.

In the wider European Union (EU), the employment also saw a quarterly increase of 0.2 percent. The figures suggested that the bloc's labor market continued to recover despite at a quite slow pace.

A total of 151 million people in the single currency bloc were employed from April to June, and the number reached 228.8 million across the continent, EU's statistical agency Eurostat said in a press release.

Compared with the same quarter of the previous year, employment increased by 0.8 percent in euro area and by 0.9 percent in the EU, Eurostat said.

Among member states, there was a notable improvement in Portugal and Greece, where the employment rose by 1.3 percent and by 1.2 percent, compared with the previous quarter. Ireland and Spain followed, both rose by 0.9 percent.

However, falls were recorded in four countries. Bulgaria and Lithuania both saw decreases of 0.1 percent. The United Kingdom's employment declined 0.2 percent and Finland's slumped further, down by 0.3 percent.

"The flip side of slightly faster employment growth, while GDP growth slowed in the second quarter, is that productivity growth slowed - ending a period of five consecutive quarters of improvement," said Jack Allen, an European economist of Capital Economics.

"If sustained, this bodes ill for wage growth," he added. "Looking ahead, employment surveys suggest that the labor market will continue to improve at only a gradual pace." Endit