1. THE ECONOMIC INDICATORS 1

2.  An economic indicator is simply any economic statistic, such as the unemployment rate, GDP or the inflation rate, which indicate how well the economy is doing and how well the economy is going to do in the future.  Investigators use all the information at their disposal to make decisions. 2

3. ECONOMIC INDICATORS Related to prices Consumer Price Index Industrial Price Index Agricultural Price Index Related to production GDP GNP National Income Related to employment Unemployment rate Employment rate 3

4. Spain (2009 est)  Gross Domestic Product is a measure of the value of goods and services produced in a country in a year. 4

5.  GDP per capita is the Gross Domestic Product divided by total population.  The volume index of GDP per capita in Purchasing Power Standards (PPS) is expressed in relation to the European Union (EU-27) average set to equal 100. If the index of a country is higher than 100, this country's level of GDP per head is higher than the EU average and vice versa 5

6. Total population Active population Employed Self-employed EmployeeUnemployed Inactive population 6

7.  Unemployment can be defined as:  It can be measured in two ways: ◦ Labour Force Survey  Large scale sample of employment status of thousands of households.  Unemployed must have actively sought work in the previous week.  This method is preferred as it allows fair comparisons. ◦ Registered unemployment. People who are able, available, willing, and actively seeking work, but who are not employed. 7

8. Source www.idescat.cat 8

9.  A minimum wage is the lowest hourly, daily or monthly wage that employers may legally pay to employees or workers.  The minimum wage is not widespread across Europe, 7 European countries have not implemented it: Cyprus, Germany, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Austria and Italy. 9

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11.  Inflation is a general and sustained increase in prices. ◦ In other words if it happens, things get more expensive.  It is quoted as a percentage % ◦ E.g. annual inflation of 2% means that on average:  Something that cost 1 € last year will now cost 1,02 €.  A rise in prices means that people are worse off unless their income increases by the same percentage.  Low and stable inflation will help business. 11

12.  The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is the most widely used measure of inflation. It is a measure of the average change over time in the prices paid by urban consumers for a market basket of consumer goods and services.  The Harmonised Consumer Price Index (HCPI) is a standardised measure of price inflation used to compare the inflation performance of countries inside the European Union. 12

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