Spain and Italy hit by more bad news
ITALY and Spain were clobbered with further sets of bad data yesterday, as the countries struggle to fight both recession and sovereign debt crises.
Retail trade in Italy, the Eurozone’s third largest economy, slid one per cent between August 2011 and August this year, data from Istat revealed yesterday. This came as employees were hit by real declines in their wages, also according to data from Istat. Hourly wages were up 1.4 per cent in cash terms over the year, compared to inflation of 3.3 per cent in that month, indicating a real decline of 1.9 per cent in just a year.
And Spain was hit by industrial price inflation speeding ahead at 3.8 per cent, data for September from statistical office Ine revealed.