Monster Employment Index Europe

I have been following the US Monster Employment Index for a few years now.  I have not paid much attention to the Monster Employment Index Europe.  There was something caught my attention in the latest (January 2012) report.

The summary of the 2012-01 Europe Index reported,

• The Monster Employment Index Europe grows 9% on a year-over-year basis.
• Germany is the only country to demonstrate strong annual growth at 30%.
• The Netherlands, Italy, Belgium and France continue to report negative growth rates.

I use the US Monster Employment Index as a simplistic current-to-leading index for the US economy. I would imagine there are many differences between US and European economies due to the regulations and political reality. The Europe Index reports only on seven countries: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, and United Kingdom. Though not covering all of the European Union countries, it is interesting enough for me to keep an eye on from time to time. I looked back to last year's numbers, this downward trend has started around August/September time. If the Europe Index bears a similar characteristics to its US counterpart, the western Europe except for Germany is close to another recession.

Some media thought that Germany's export has benefited from a weakened EURO. If not, there would have been fewer people that can afford their new BMW and Mercedes. I don't know whether that is true or not, but I wonder Germany can single-handedly pull the whole EU along with it. It is troublesome enough to worry about the bad sovereign debts. And now the economy of Europe is in a shaky state. Maybe that explains why all my mutual fund holdings that have European exposures are in retreat.