Euro-Area Wage Growth Picks Up, Giving ECB Some Good News

(Bloomberg) -- Go inside the global economy with Stephanie Flanders in her new podcast, Stephanomics. Subscribe via Pocket Cast or iTunes.

Wage growth in the euro area continues to improve, reaching 2.5% in the first quarter of 2019. It keeps the labor market as the main source of good news for European Central Bank policy makers, who are seeing the economy under pressure and inflation expectations plunge. Officials meeting for a conference in Portugal this week have said they won’t hesitate to loosen policy again if the situation demands it.

To contact the reporter on this story: Fergal O'Brien in Zurich at fobrien@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Craig Stirling at cstirling1@bloomberg.net, Jana Randow

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.