Eurozone records marginal GDP growth after forecasts of stagnation
In the final three months of 2024, seasonally adjusted GDP increased by 0.1% quarter-on-quarter in the eurozone and by 0.2% in the EU, Eurostat said on Friday.
In the prior quarter, GDP grew by 0.4% in both areas.
The new figures are slight improvements on previous estimates, communicated last month, although they're far below the 0.6% total seen in the US.
Quarterly growth in the eurozone was predicted at 0% in January while EU growth was estimated at 0.1%.
Compared to the final three months of 2023, GDP grew by 0.9% in the eurozone in the final quarter of last year. In the EU, this total came to 1.1%.
These results follow year-on-year growth totals of 0.9% seen in the euro area and 1.0% seen in the EU in the previous quarter.
Particularly strong annual rises in Q4 output were seen in Poland, Lithuania and Spain, while Austria and Germany recorded the steepest declines.
'The euro-zone economy performed a little better than previously thought in Q4, but growth was still extremely weak and the early signs are that it got off to a slow start to 2025,' Jack Allen-Reynolds, deputy chief eurozone economist at Capital Economics, said.
'The key point is that a 0.1% expansion is hardly something to get excited about,' he continued.
'Both Germany and France experienced contractions in Q4, while Italy stagnated, leaving it up to Spain and other smaller countries to stop the region's economy from contracting.'
In the same release, Eurostat noted that the number of employed persons increased by 0.1% in both the euro area and the EU in the fourth quarter of 2024, compared with the previous quarter.
In the third quarter of 2024, employment had increased by 0.2% in the euro area and had remained stable in the EU.
Compared with the same quarter of the previous year, employment increased by 0.6% in the euro area and by 0.5% in the EU in the fourth quarter of 2024.
'The flipside of these employment gains is that productivity, measured by GDP per worker, has declined by 1.4% since Q3 2022,' Allen-Reynolds said.
'In turn, this has kept unit labour cost growth and underlying price pressures higher than they would otherwise have been.'
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