The unemployment rate has increased, though only to the national average so far. Going back a few years, WA had, at times, the lowest unemployment rate recorded of any state at any time over the past 40 years; on occasions there was a ‘2’ before the decimal place. That was obviously not going to be sustained indefinitely.
Second, I will make some more general remarks on the monetary policy concept of the ECB. The current state of the euro area economy Overall, the latest data releases confirm that the economic recovery in the euro area is continuing. Quarterly real GDP growth in the first quarter of this year was 0.6%, slightly higher than what had been expected earlier this year.