The GDP of the eurozone expanded by 0.4% in the third quarter of the yeara rate that is two tenths higher than that observed in the second quarter (0.2%) and one tenth higher than that of the first quarter (0.3%).
Private consumption and investment were the two main factors of GDP growth in the eurozone in the third quarter of this year, which rose two tenths to 0.4% in a period in which it was weighed down by the negative balance between exports and imports, according to the latest data from Eurostat.
Specifically, household consumption grew by 0.5% between July and September, while gross fixed capital formation – the main component of investment – expanded by 2%. Between the two they explain 0.8 points of the economic expansion in the third quarter (0.4 points each).
They are added stock variation (the second component of the investment) and public spendingwhich contribute 0.4 points and 0.1 points, respectively, to the growth of economic activity in the same period.
On the negative side, Imports to the euro zone increased by 0.2% between July and September, while Exports decreased by 1.5%two behaviors that lead to a negative contribution to economic growth of 0.9 points.
In the EU as a whole, the behavior of the economy was similarwith an expansion in the third quarter of 0.4% that is explained by the growth of the variation in inventories (0.5 points), private consumption (0.3 points), gross fixed capital formation (0. 2 points) and public spending (0.1 points), from which the negative balance between exports and imports must be subtracted (-0.8 points).
By country, the countries with the greatest expansions were Ireland (3.5%), Denmark and Lithuania (both 1.2%), while Spain recorded a GDP growth rate of 0.8%double the average for both the eurozone and the EU.
Spain was the only one of the four large European economies with a performance above the average since the GDP of France increased by 0.4%, that of Germany by 0.1% and that of Italy remained stable (0%).
In contrast, five Member States recorded negative GDP rates in the third quarter: they were Austria, Poland and Romania, with declines of 0.1%, Latvia (-0.2%) and Hungary (-0.7%).
Employment, on the rise
Regarding the behavior of employment, the number of people with work increased between July and September of this year by 0.2% in the countries of the euro zone and remained stable in the EU as a whole.
This means that in the third quarter of the year there were a total of 219.1 million people employed in all Member States and of them, 170.9 million worked in countries that use the common currency.
The largest increases in employment were in Croatia (1.5%), Ireland (1.2%) and Malta (1.0%), followed by Spain with a rate of 0.6%, while the most important reductions were observed in Romania (- 3.1%), Estonia (-1.2%) and Latvia (-0.6%).
With these data, Eurostat calculates that Productivity per person employed remained stable in the eurozone and increased by 0.3% in the EU compared to the same quarter in 2023. Based on total hours worked, year-on-year productivity grew by 0.5% in the euro zone and 0.8% across the bloc.
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