Peripheral labour markets are healing, but very slowly

Evidence mounted last week that euro-zone unemployment has peaked. Particularly encouragingly, many of the peripheral economies have now enjoyed several months of falling unemployment. What’s more, employment growth in the region is likely to pick up over the coming quarters. But this will only slowly erode the region’s very high unemployment rates. Indeed, much of the recent fall in the jobless count has been driven by drops in the workforce and temporary factors.