Record Jobless Rate in Greece; Swiss Sentiment Improves

Darlington Musarurwa
14 Apr, 2011
New York City

Hungarian industrial production accelerated in February and retail sales in the Netherlands surged. Norwegian home prices increased 5.1% in the first quarter. Greece jobless rate rose to record 15.1% in January. Swiss economic sentiment improved in April.

[R]12:30 PM Frankfurt – Hungarian industrial production accelerated in February and retail sales in the Netherlands surged. Norwegian home prices increased 5.1% in the first quarter. Greece jobless rate rose to record 15.1% in January. Swiss economic sentiment improved in April.[/R]

Hungarian Industrial Output Increases

Hungarian industrial production increased a working-day adjusted 14.3% annually in February, following January''s 10.7% gain, the final data released by the Central Statistics Office showed on Thursday. The pace of output growth accelerated for a second consecutive month.

On a monthly basis, production rose a seasonally and working-day adjusted 0.9% in February, slower than January''s 15.3% increase.

Dutch Retail Sales Surges

Retail sales in the Netherlands increased 3% annually in February, after January''s 0.6% gain, which was downwardly revised from 1.5%, data released by the Central Bureau of Statistics showed.

Sales in food and beverages stores grew 1.5% annually in February, following a 2% decline in January.

Norway Home Prices Rise

Norwegian home prices increased strongly in the first quarter, following declines in the previous two quarters, Statistics Norway reported on Thursday.

Home prices rose 5.1% from the final three months of 2010. Prices of flats increased 5.7%, while prices of detached houses and row houses increased 5%.

Annually, home prices increased 8.4% in the first quarter. A total of 18,734 house sales were used to compute the house price index for the first quarter.

Greece Unemployment Reaches Record Level

Greece''s jobless rate rose for the seventh consecutive month in January to a fresh record, official data showed today.

The unemployment rate climbed to 15.1% in January from December''s 14.8%, the Hellenic Statistics Authority said. The number of unemployed rose 3.2% in January to 756,800 from 733,600 in December.

In the same month last year, the jobless rate was 11.3% and 567,100 persons were out of work.

Swiss ZEW Economic Sentiment Improves

Swiss economic sentiment improved notably in April, a survey by the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) and Credit Suisse showed today.

The relevant CS-ZEW indicator climbed 22.3 points to 8.8, moving into positive territory for the first time since August 2010.

Finnish Inflation Flat

Inflation in Finland was at 3.3% in March, unchanged from February, Statistics Finland said on Thursday.

The high rate of inflation was largely due to rising prices of fuel, food and non-alcoholic beverages, the statistics office said.

On a monthly basis, consumer prices grew 0.5% in March, led primarily by higher prices of liquid fuels and clothing.