Eurostat's second look at the euro area quarter revised nothing, and the new number in it is employment growth of 0.1 percent against output growth of 0.4 percent

Nothing was revised.

Eurostat published the 45 day flash estimate for the second quarter of 2026 on Friday morning, and euro area gross domestic product is still 0.4 percent higher than in the first quarter, seasonally adjusted. European Union output is still 0.5 percent higher. The release says in its own words that the euro area and EU estimates for the last quarter were not revised, and that earlier quarters are not revised here either. Measured against the second quarter of 2025, euro area output was 1.0 percent higher and EU output 1.2 percent higher, after 0.5 percent and 0.8 percent in the previous quarter.

The number that is new

The count of employed persons rose 0.1 percent in both the euro area and the EU, against the first quarter. In the first quarter employment had risen 0.1 percent in the euro area and had not moved in the EU.

Against the same quarter of 2025, employment was 0.5 percent higher in both, after 0.5 percent in the euro area and 0.6 percent in the EU three months earlier.

Set the two series beside each other and the shape is plain. Output ran 0.3, 0.2, 0.0 and 0.4 percent across the last four quarters. Employment ran 0.2, 0.2, 0.1 and 0.1.

What got wider

The preliminary flash on 30 July rested on estimates from 19 member states, covering 96 percent of euro area output. This one rests on data covering 99 percent of euro area and EU output. The employment flash covers 95 percent of euro area total employment and 92 percent of the EU total.

The country table grew with the coverage. Bulgaria, Cyprus, Poland, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia now carry a second quarter reading where the July release left the cell empty, and the table now holds two economies smaller than they were a year earlier rather than one. Ireland is 5.6 percent below its second quarter of 2025 while recording the fastest quarter in the European Union at 3.9 percent, which is where it stood in July, under a footnote from Eurostat warning that the Irish flash may rest on methods still under development. Romania is 2.0 percent below a year earlier, on a quarter in which output did not move at all.

Slovenia recorded 1.8 percent, Lithuania 1.7 percent and Sweden 1.4 percent. Germany, France and Italy each recorded 0.2 percent. Belgium and Austria did not grow.

The American row

Eurostat prints one, and it reads 0.4 percent for the second quarter, after 0.5 percent in the first. Against the same quarter of 2025 the American figure is 2.1 percent, after 2.7 percent.

So the euro area and the United States grew at the same rate on the quarter. On the year the two readings are 1.0 percent and 2.1 percent.