Eurostat has released Novemember retail trade figures and the retail economy continues to contract:
It was contracting slowly all last year but the contraction seems to be accelerating slightly. One noteworthy milestone is that in the Eurozone (pink line) retail trade (on a real and seasonally adjusted basis) has now fallen below the lowest levels of the 2008-2009 recession. So the partial recovery in late 2009 and 2010 has been entirely wiped out.
There are wide disparities in where the pain is falling. This graph shows year over year change in retail trade (in most cases for November but in a few cases for October where the former is not disclosed yet):
The pain is very great in Greece, Portugal, and Spain - and not much better in Denmark and Bulgaria.
2 comments:
Stuart,
why is *more* retail better? I imply it since you write contraction is *pain*...
Alex
Retail offers employment, especially to the less skilled. Social unrest is a growth industry for the coming summer.
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