Consumer prices in the euro area fell slightly in August compared to a year earlier. As a result, inflation in the euro area has become negative for the first time since 2016, at minus 0.2%. This is reported by the European statistical office Eurostat.
According to experts, this is mainly due to the weak demand for its products in the middle of the coronacrisis. The many summer offers also play a role in reducing the average price level.
In particular, in countries such as Cyprus, Greece, Ireland and Estonia, inflation fell sharply. Germany also had a slightly negative inflation rate of less 0.1%. In the Netherlands, according to Eurostat, there was a slightly positive figure of 0.3%.
The negative inflation rate in the euro area is unexpected. In general, the economists had expected a small amount of 0.2 per cent. In July prices were on average 0.4% higher than a year ago.
For a good picture, experts also always try to correct the figures for the influence of the highly fluctuating prices for energy and life and pleasure products. This is the so-called core inflation, which came to a level of 0.4% before August. This measure is therefore still positive, although it was also a clear drop compared to a month earlier.
Unemployment in the euro area continued to rise as a follow-up to the coronacrisis in July. According to the European statistical office Eurostat, unemployment was 7.9% compared with an adjusted 7.7% in June. However, the strong underperformance was less than that expected by economists.
In total, 12.8 million people in the euro area are unemployed, as Eurostat figures. For the European Union as a whole, the unemployment rate is 7.2%. That amounts to a small 15.2 million jobs.
Furthermore, there were 2.4 million young people in the euro area who were out of work, which was never at a youth unemployment rate of 17.3%. That was 17.2% a month earlier.