Euro Area Orders Rise; German Retail Sales Drop

Arthi Gupta
05 Jan, 2012
New York City

The producer price index for the euro area and Italian jobless rate rose but retail sales in Germany fell in November. The consumer confidence index for France remained unchanged in December.

[R]1:45 PM Frankfurt – The producer price index for the euro area and Italian jobless rate rose but retail sales in Germany fell in November. The consumer confidence index for France remained unchanged in December.[/R]

Euro-zone Producer Prices, Orders Up

The producer price index for the euro area rose 0.2% on a monthly basis in November, data from Eurostat showed.

Prices of non-durable consumer goods increased 0.3% and that of durable consumer goods rose 0.2% in November.

Separately, the euro-zone industrial new orders grew 1.8% on a monthly basis in October after declining by a revised 7.8% in September, Eurostat said today.

On a yearly basis, annual growth in new orders remained unchanged at 1.6% in October.

Italian Jobless Rate Rises

Italy''s unemployment rate increased to 8.6% in November from 8.5% in October, data released by statistics office Istat showed. In November 2010, the jobless rate was 8.3%. The jobless rate rose for the third month in a row.

The unemployment rate among youth rose 0.9 percentage points from the previous month to 30.1% in November.

The number of unemployed persons increased 0.7% from a month ago to 2.14 million, the agency said.

Hungarian Jobless Rate Drops

Hungary''s unemployment rate decreased to 10.6% in November from 10.8% in October, according to data released by the Central Statistics Office. The latest jobless rate was the lowest since December 2009, when the number was 10.5%.

The number of unemployed persons dropped to around 460,300 in November from around 468,000 in October.

German Construction Activity Shrinks, Retail Sales Fall

Activity in the German construction sector contracted in December, the survey results from Markit Economics showed on Thursday.

The seasonally adjusted Construction Purchasing Managers'' Index declined to 49.3 in December, from 49.9 in November.

In another report, retail sales in Germany fell unexpectedly in November, the latest data from the Federal Statistics Office showed.

Sales declined 0.9% from a month ago in real terms when adjusted for calendar and seasonal variations in November, after a 0.2% monthly fall in October.

French Sentiment Stable

The consumer confidence index for France remained unchanged at 80 in December, data released by statistics office Insee showed. The latest reading was the lowest since December 2008.