Importantly, the achievements in the area of monetary stability have not come at the cost of higher unemployment. On the contrary, the unemployment rate has averaged around 8½% over the past six years and has therefore been more than one percentage point lower, on average, than in the 1990s.
Annual employment growth (in terms of persons employed) has doubled from an average of around ½% in the 1980s and 1990s to slightly above 1% since the start of the single monetary policy. Average real GDP growth has been 1.9% in the past six years, which is close to the average of 2.0% in the 1990s (1990-1998).