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).
Moreover, there are no visible signs of costs in terms of higher real macroeconomic volatility; on the contrary, in recent years the volatility of some real variables has also declined relative to the averages observed during the 1980s and 1990s.