LISBON: The EU’s statistics office released a report that showed that the labour costs in Portugal in the fourth quarter of 2014 were down 8.8 percent on the same period a year earlier, which is the largest drop in European Union member states.
In the Euro Zone labour costs were up 1.1 percent on the year and in the EU as a whole 1.4 percent, the Eurostat report shows. In Portugal, the year-on-year rate turned negative after it was a positive 0.5 percent in the third quarter and 3.2 percent in the second quarter. Salaries in the country were down 9.7 percent on the year and non-salary expenses 5.8 percent.
