Economic downturn in the EU: The impact on employment in the business economy

A recession is often defined as two successive negative quarter on quarter changes in constant price GDP. Eurostat’s Statistics in Focus on ‘Recession in the EU-27: output measures’ (issue 17/2009) showed that there were successive declines in the EU-27’s GDP in the third and fourth quarters of 2008, and since then a further and stronger rate of decline was recorded for the first quarter of 2009. Along with GDP and inflation, employment also provides a direct indication of the overall level of economic activity. This publication uses short-term indicators to look at the impact of this new recession on trends in EU-27 employment within economic activities.