The Euro dropped against the US Dollar today, hitting new lows for this year, as economic concerns weighed on the European currency.
The Euro Exchange Rate was in the region of 1.2921 against the US Dollar as of 12:17 pm GMT
This morning saw the release of the European Central Bank’s latest monthly report. In it the central bank asserted that with a pickup in global demand boosting exports the Eurozone should begin to recover in mid-2013.
In the report GDP for 2013 was forecast to be in the range of -0.9 per cent and -0.1 per cent. The ECB also commented that in 2014 GDP would either remain flat or climb up to around 2 per cent.
However, not long after the report was issued this optimistic outlook was undermined as official figures revealed that employment in the Eurozone plummeted to its lowest levels for nearly 7 years in the 4Q of 2012.
According to statistics agency Eurostat, employment in the 17-nation currency bloc fell by 0.3 per cent from the 3Q to the 4Q to a seasonally adjusted 145.7 million.
The figure is over 1 million less than in the same period of 2011.
Employment levels dropped by a significant amount in Portugal, Spain and Cyprus (by 2, 1.4 and 1.3 per cent respectively) but also fell slightly in France, the Eurozone’s second largest economy.
Employment in the Eurozone’s largest economy, Germany, gained by 0.1 per cent.
According to IHS Global Insight economist Howard Archer: ‘The increased drop in Eurozone employment in the fourth quarter of 2012 maintains belief that consumer spending will remain generally muted in the near term at least.’
The odds of the Eurozone’s return to growth being in line with the ECB’s forecasts were significantly reduced by the news and the Euro posted declines against several of its most traded currency rivals, trading in the region of 1.2920 against the US Dollar.
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