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The number of unemployed in Germany fell in August to its lowest level since November 2008, thus establishing the conditions for continued growth in household spending needed to recover more balanced economy.

The Federal Labour Office said on Tuesday a drop of 17,000 job seekers in seasonally adjusted data (SDA) between July and August, whose number was reduced to 3.193 million.

This decline is however slightly less than that envisaged by economists to Reuters, who had anticipated a decline of 20,000.

In July, the decrease in the number of unemployed was 21,000 according to revised figures, against 20.000 originally announced.

The unemployment rate remained steady in August, and in line with expectations at 7.6% of the workforce.

On the employment front, Germany seems to fare better than its European partners, since the rate of unemployment in the euro area remained unchanged in July at 10%.

The German government has also been criticized by other countries, including France, who believe that Berlin does not enough to stimulate domestic demand, which would be favorable for exports of country partners.

"SUCCESS STORY"

"The impressive performance of the labor market can become a real success story if it eventually leads to a recovery in private consumption," said Carsten Brzeski, of ING Financial Markets.

"This is not only the decline in unemployment bodes well for private consumption but also job creation. Since the beginning of the year, the trend in employment is still growing," says he.

Berlin, however, reflected in an austerity plan intended to save 80 billion euros over the next four years.

"The U.S. economy is very bad right now," he told a press conference Heinrich Alt, the Federal Labour Office.

"There are a lot of risks.Until now the trend is stable but we can not ignore that the situation is more fragile than other periods of recovery. "

Economists estimate that slower growth should however not too cripple the labor market, while in the second quarter of the German economy grew at its fastest pace since the country's reunification in 1990.

"The economy will not be able to maintain these high growth rates. The pace will slow in the fall and next year.But the slowdown will not be strong enough to have a significant impact on the labor market, "says Eckart Tuchtfeld, Commerzbank.

In unadjusted data, the number of unemployed fell from 4,000 in August to 3.188 million against 3.192 million in July for an unemployment rate unchanged at 7.6%.

The Federal Office of Statistics for its part announced that the number of people working in Germany had increased from 40,296,000 in June to 40.305 million in July.

* Chart the evolution of unemployment in Germany:

r.reuters.com/nec48n

The growth of the U.S. economy in the second quarter was much weaker estimated initially at 1.6% annualized 2.4% originally announced cons, particularly penalized by the higher increase in imports for 26 years, published revised statistics show Friday.

Economists polled by Reuters on average expected a downward revision even more pronounced at 1.4%, mainly due to higher imports and slower recovery in business inventories. (See)

Export growth was revised to 9.1% for the second quarter, while the previous estimate reported an increase of 10.3%.Imports have them, increased by 32.4%, against 28.8% in the first estimate.

Following this publication, futures on U.S. indexes have increased their gains, while European markets are back in positive territory.

Enel has announced plans to launch the initial public offering (IPO) of its affiliate company specialized in renewable energies over the last two weeks of October.

The Italian group of community service, the actor in the sector the most indebted in Europe, hopes to raise between three and four billion euros in bringing to market a minority stake in Enel Green Power, which could be the largest such operation in Europe this year.

"The IPO will take place in the second half of October," said a spokesman for Enel Friday.

The banks involved in the operation on Friday met Chief Financial Officer of Enel, Luigi Ferraris, to discuss the case, said the spokesman, adding that the company continued with its parallel search for a buyer for participation .

This dual approach (dual track) means that in theory, Enel could abandon at the last minute to rate its subsidiary if the sale of OTC was a realistic alternative to public offerings.

"At the meeting with the banks this morning, the focus has been on the IPO, but this does not mean that the company abandoned its dual-track approach," said the spokesman.

Sources have told Reuters that the international coordinators of the IPO were Mediobanca, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse and Intesa Sanpaolo.

The leaders of the transaction are JP Morgan, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Barclays, BBVA and Unicredit.

The European Commission announced that it authorized the repurchase of the French specialist of the PPE Sperian by the American conglomerate Honeywell, as the operation does not affect competition.

The transaction represents 1.4 billion dollars (1.06 billion euros), a sum which includes the takeover of Honeywell debt of 300 million euros Sperian.

The European Commission has estimated that all Honeywell-Sperian will face a significant number of competitors.

The American group, who beat the investment fund Cinven for redemption Sperian has developed on the segment of protective equipment in recent years. He acquired Norcross Safety Production including $ 1.2 billion in 2008.

The Paris Bourse, as all European markets ended down sharply on Thursday following the publication of a series of disappointing U.S. indicators, confirming the interruption of a long sequence of increase initiated the day before.

The CAC 40 index finished down 1.41% at 3581.82 points, after playing a note on irregular closely during most of the session. The index had already paused Wednesday (-0.13%), having won more than 9% in six sessions of consecutive increase.

London fell by 0.8% and Frankfurt 0.97%.As for the European indices, the EuroStoxx 50 yielded 1.35% and 1.14% Eurofirst 300.

'Investors are still worried about the slowdown in the United States, and after the recent good performance of markets, profit-taking seem necessary given that the risks are always present ", says Claudia Panseri, chief strategist at SG CIB .

Falling producer prices and the index of the New York Fed has cooled the enthusiasm of investors even though they had enthusiastically welcomed the results published by JPMorgan.

Similarly, producer prices have fallen more sharply than expected in June and the condition index of industrial activity were sharply down in July.

After cutting their losses in early afternoon following the publication of excellent results by JP Morgan, the banks are heavily impact the market.

Dexia largest decline of ACC, ended down 5.12% to 3.243 euros, Crédit Agricole of 3.26% to 9.287 euros and BNP Paribas 4.01% to 48.705 euros.

The values "dollar" have suffered bad news on growth overseas as the U.S. currency.

In the aerospace sector, EADS lost 4.86% to 16.550 euros and 4.59% at Saffron 20.800 euros. In the area of semiconductors, STMicroelectronics has yielded 2.08% to 6.776 euros and 8.063 to 4.91% Soitec euros.The euro is trading at 1.2906 / 08 1.2738 dollars against the previous day.

U.S. light crude lost $ 1.05 per share to 75.99 dollars a barrel.

The Spanish bank Banesto publishes an interim result down 6.8% due to the recognition of a higher amount of provisions for bad debts, which impacted the margins of the establishment.

The Spanish bank has registered a net profit of 381.7 million euros, while analysts polled by Reuters had expected 376 million euros.

Banesto, majority owned by Spanish bank Santander and the first to publish its interim results, said it recorded $ 85 million of exceptional provisions.

The ratio of Banesto related bad loans to total loans stood at 3.48% against 3.12% at end-March, while analysts at Citi said they expect that this ratio reaches a peak during the year 2011.

The net interest income, or about what a bank earns on loans decreased costs related to its deposit, rose 0.5% to 863.6 million euros against 855 million expected by analysts.

Around 7:15 GMT, gaining 0.8%, while the Stoxx index comprising the major European banking stocks was virtually unchanged at the same moment (-0.05%).

Officially, the subject is not on the table. For its pension reform, Nicolas Sarkozy ruled out the possibility of reaching the level of pensions – and thus to contribute to today's retirees. However, the idea is more in tune with the times. The economist Patrick Artus and militates in favor of a form of redistribution from older to younger. As the founding Terra Nova, near the PS, it is about to publish a report on the mind-blowing subject. One of its main proposals: align the tax on retirement assets that, while it is now lower.

An idea supported by a growing number of experts. This is the case of Bruno Palier, a researcher at Cevipof and pension specialist: "The rate of the CSG paid by retirees is 6.6% against 7.5% for assets. Align the two already bring in three billion euros per year.The advantage of such a reform, according to the economist: it would spare the poorest pensioners, exempt from income tax, who do not pay either the CSG. "It is quite unfair to say they will tighten the rules only for those who will in the future, while the system is very generous to pensioners today," notes Francois Legendre, an economist at the center of Employment Studies and author of numerous works on pensions.

It must indeed distinguish reforms necessitated by the longer life expectancy than those imposed by the arrival at the age of retirement for many generations of post-war. "Baby boomers French have not taken the necessary measures to ensure the funding of their pensions. It is not normal that this weighs on active today.From this point of view, a transient increase in the CSG of retirees is defensible, "said Antoine Bozio co-signer, Thomas Piketty, of a proposed radical overhaul of the French pension system. According to this expert, the question does not arise if the baby boomers French had at the time they were active themselves, fed a pension reserve fund, as were the Swedes do, and even American …

See also: What you should know about pension reform