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Wednesday, March 27, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Through end of 2021 in EU, gross domestic product and employment climbed

As the bloc saw consumer spending fall, investments and government spending picked up the slack.

(CN) — The gross domestic product of the European Union increased by 5.3% in 2021, recovering from a downturn caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a report released Tuesday by the EU’s statistical office, Eurostat.

The GDP had shrunk by 5.9% in 2020, but, by the fourth quarter of 2021, the 27 European Union member states finally edged out the GDP volume seen at the end of 2019, Eurostat noted in a tweet announcing the report.

In the fourth quarter of 2021, the seasonally adjusted GDP inched up 0.4% in the European Union, compared to the 2.2% growth seen in the previous quarter.

Consumer spending helped drive the EU’s growth of the GDP in the third quarter of 2021. But then it decreased by 0.6% in the fourth quarter, Eurostat observed.

The Eurostat office expects annual inflation in the region would reach 5.8% in February, driven predominately by spiking energy prices measured before the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine.

The inflation rate is the highest since Eurostat started tracking it in the mid-90s. Members of the EU look to Russia for about a quarter of crude oil.

Investments, or gross fixed capital formation, and increases in government expenditures helped drive the GDP of the EU upwards at the end of 2021, the statistics office said.

Among member states, Slovenia witnessed the highest growth of its GDP as compared with the third quarter of 2021, enjoying a 5.4% growth rate. It was followed by Malta, which saw a 2.4% growth rate in the 2021 fourth quarter.

Ireland experienced a 5.4% decrease to its GDP at the end of 2021 while the GDP of Austria shrank 1.5%.

While the EU had its GDP volume 0.6% above that of its GDP in the fourth quarter of 2019, the United States saw its GDP 3.2% larger in the fourth quarter of 2021 than in the last quarter of 2019, Eurostat said.

Eurostat’s announcement comes at a time when unemployment continues to drop from its high in the spring 2020 due to the throes of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Tuesday’s report says employment increased 1.1% in the European Union in 2021, with Hungary and Denmark enjoying the biggest boosts in employment in 2021’s fourth quarter. At the same time, employment declined 0.3% in Latvia.

Overall, 210.9 million individuals were working in the EU at year’s end, according to Eurostat’s report.

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Categories / Economy, Financial, International

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