Yesterday it was the French, with record high unemployment and record low bond yields. Today, it is the turn of the Italians as the unemployment rate rose to 13.2% – the highest since records began – as bond yields continue to plumb new “lower rates will spur lending which will spur economic growth which will create jobs” lows…

As Bloomberg reports,

Renzi said today’s increase in the unemployment rate is partly due to more people starting to look actively for a job. The so-called “discouraged” workers who are not looking for work are not counted in the Istat jobless data.

“Unemployment data are worrying,” said Renzi, whose comments on the sidelines of an event in Catania were broadcast by SkyTG24. “We cannot deny the problems out there, still we shouldn’t see the glass half empty either.”

Is this worrying?

As we asked – entirely rhetorically – before – just what is it that ECB sovereign QE supposed to achieve?

*  *  *

As Reuters reports, deflation looms…

Italy is stuck in a rut of diminishing expectations. Numbed by years of wage freezes, and skeptical the government can improve their economic fortunes, Italians are hoarding what money they have and cutting back on basic purchases, from detergent to windows.

“I see an enormous danger that we will still be in this situation in six months’ time, and the longer it lasts the harder it is to get out,” says Gustavo Piga, an economics professor at Rome’s Tor Vergata University.

“I always tell myself that if we can get through this period we will come out very strong, but I’m honestly not optimistic about the future.”

But it is considerably more worrisome than that…

Fully 70% of new jobs in Italy in the third quarter of this year were filled by temporary contracts, according to labour ministry statistics released Friday that highlighted the precariousness of the employment picture.