FRANKFURT – The European economy shrank by 3.8% in the first quarter, the most since records began, as business activity was frozen by shutdowns aimed at preventing the spread of the coronavirus.
It was the biggest drop since statistics started in 1995 and bigger than the plunge in the midst of the global financial crisis in the first quarter of 2009 after the bankruptcy of U.S.
investment bank Lehman Brothers. Unemployment, however, rose only slightly even amid the massive shutdowns that idled everything from florists to restaurants to factories.
The February jobless figure from European Union statistics agency Eurostat rose to 7.4% in March from 7.3% in February. Millions of workers are being supported by temporary short-hours programs