Household consumption was the main driver of euro zone economic growth in the third quarter, the European Union's statistics office data showed today, with a further positive contribution from trade.
Eurostat confirmed the euro zone economy expanded by 2.2% quarter-on-quarter in the third quarter to give a 3.9% year-on-year rise as the economy continued to recover from the deep pandemic-induced recession in 2020.
Household consumption contributed 2.1 percentage points to the quarterly growth number with net trade adding another 0.3 points.
But government spending added only 0.1 point to the final result and despite the first payouts from the EU's recovery fund for green and digital investment, gross fixed capital formation fell sharply, subtracting 0.2 points from the final figure.
Economists polled by Reuters had expected a quarter-on-quarter euro zone GDP growth of 2.2% and a 3.7% rise year-on-year.
Meanwhile, euro zone employment rose by 0.9% on a quarterly basis and rose by 2.1% year-on-year in the third quarter, the European Union statistics office said today.
This comfirmed its earlier estimate for the quarter-on-quarter figure but marked a revision of its earlier estimate of 2% for the year-on-year figure.
According to a Reuters poll, employment had been expected to rise 0.9% quarter-on-quarter and rise 2% year-on-year.
