Fresh evidence of the deepening slowdown came from around the world, Wall Street Journal reports. Euro-zone data Tuesday showed inflation at 0.6% in Europe’s single-currency area for the year through March, the lowest level since official records began in 1996. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD] now estimates a decline in global output this year of 2.75%, the first shrinkage since World War II. World trade is expected to fall more than 6%.
“The world economy is in the midst of its deepest and most synchronized recession in our lifetimes,” OECD chief economist Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel wrote in the report. The OECD projected unemployment in 30 industrialized countries will jump to near double digits, from 6% last year. [WSJ]
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