If anyone is confused why European stocks just hit their highest levels in nearly 5 years (if not all time highs - there America with its 48 million foodstamp recipients has it beat), the chart below should provide some lack of color. According to Eurostat [2], in Q4 the number of persons employed in Europe compared to Q4 declined by 0.3% in the Euroarea, and 0.2% in the Eu27. The decline was -0.8% and -0.4% for the EA17 and EU27 compared to a year ago. Of course, if the Fed and ECB keeps pushing stocks higher, monetary illogic dictates that eventually this number will rise because somehow having more diluted claims on money floating around is good for jobs. Just not yet.
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