What's going on?

Rosy news from Europe: a survey of eurozone companies in February reported the strongest growth in business activity since 2011. It also showed employment is growing at its fastest rate in almost ten years. Both are signs that the eurozone�s economy is starting to look up!

What does this mean?

The survey indicates businesses have been increasing their output � the amount of goods and services they produce � at the highest rate in six years. Meanwhile, new orders of these goods and services grew at their fastest rate since 2011.


However, input prices (i.e. the costs for companies to make stuff) also hit a six-year high. So eurozone consumers are likely to see higher prices (i.e. inflation will go up), as companies usually feed their higher input costs through to the prices of their products (e.g. consumer goods).

Why should I care?

For you personally: The eurozone job market is heating up.

Even though companies hired new employees at the fastest rate since 2006 (i.e. since before the recession!), companies reported that their backlog of �outstanding work� still went up � which means that more jobs will likely need to be created in order to clear the deck. The eurozone unemployment rate is already at 9.6%, its lowest since 2009 � and the pickup in outstanding work means it could go down even further.

The bigger picture: Political uncertainty in the eurozone is hurting some investments.

There�s still some pretty major hurdles for the eurozone to overcome in 2017 � namely, political ones. Investors are particularly nervous about hotly contested elections in France, set to take place at the end of April, which have already caused French bonds to sell off markedly versus their German counterparts (click here for more background). Recent polls suggest far-right candidate Marine Le Pen is gaining ground (she has vowed to pull France out of the eurozone, which could cause some serious economic turmoil).