Economy, Euro | featured news

The jobless rate ticked up to 11.6 percent from the 11.5 percent in August, as 146,000 more people were classified as unemployed, data showed on Wednesday.

In spite of years of harsh spending cuts and tax increases, Europe's debt problems are getting worse. Figures from the EU's statistics office Wednesday showed that, at the end of the second quarter, the total government debt of the 17 countries that use the single currency was worth 90 percent of the group's total economic output for the year - the highest level since the euro was launched in 1999.

The euro zone's economic woes accelerated last month and China's slowdown looked likely to extend to a seventh quarter, surveys on Wednesday showed, while the United States proved the bright spot with better-than-expected news on services and jobs.

Euro zone economic sentiment defied expectations of stabilization and again fell sharply in September, underlining the economic gloom brought on by the sovereign debt crisis as the euro zone sinks into a recession.

European Union officials pushed on Saturday to accelerate moves to stem the bloc's long debt crisis as Italian premier Mario Monti warned that economic suffering was fuelling divisive nationalism on the continent.

The Swiss economy has long appeared to be surprisingly resilient to the economic downturn across Europe, but the latest statistics released Tuesday showed that Switzerland is slowing down together with the rest of Europe. After a strong first quarter, the economy contracted in the second because of falling exports to the euro zone, the Alpine country's biggest trade partner. Compared with a year earlier, the Swiss economy still managed to expand at a 0.5% pace, but it contracted 0.1% from the first quarter.

Spanish jobless claims rose at the slowest pace in six years in August, the country's labor ministry said, a sign that surging unemployment in the euro zone's fourth-largest economy is leveling off.

The Spanish economy is falling deeper into recession and depositors are pulling their money out of the banks, figures published on Tuesday showed, while the country's most economically important region, Catalonia, said it needed a major rescue from Madrid.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti said on Sunday the end of the economic crisis in his country was in sight and that the euro zone must not let the single currency become a source of friction between the north and south in the bloc.

Finance ministry officials in Greece have calculated that the debt-stricken country's economy will recover faster and its debt be more sustainable if it is given two more years to reduce its budget deficit, a Greek newspaper reported on Saturday.