The euro zone economy saw its deepest quarterly contraction on record in the first three months of the year as a result of lockdowns introduced in March to slow the Covid-19 pandemic.
The European Union's statistics office Eurostat said in a flash estimate that the euro zone's gross domestic product contracted 3.8% quarter-on-quarter for a 3.2% year-on-year fall - as expected by economists.
Eurostat said this was the sharpest quarterly decline since time series started in 1995. Year-on-year, the fall was the sharpest since the third quarter of 2009 when euro zone output shrank 4.5%.
France recorded the deepest quarterly contraction of 5.8%, followed by Slovakia with 5.4% and Spain with 5.2%.
Italy's output shrank 4.7% quarter-on-quarter, putting it officially in recession after a 0.1% contraction in the last quarter of 2019.
The euro zone's biggest economy Germany weathered the lockdown better with a 2.2% contraction while Finland was the only euro zone country that still managed to grow 0.1%.
Eurostat said euro zone exports fell 6.2% in March as a result of the pandemic, but imports dropped even more - 10.1% year-on-year - boosting the euro zone's external trade surplus to €28.2 billion from €22.7 billion a year earlier.
Trade between euro zone countries tumbled 12.1% in March compared to a year earlier to €153.3 billion as a result of the lockdowns introduced against Covid-19.
Meanwhile, employment in the euro zone fell 0.2% in the first quarter, the first quarterly decline since Eurostat started the series in the second quarter of 2013.
This brought the year-on-year employment growth rate sharply down to 0.3% from 1.1% in the previous three months.
