Editorial & Advertiser disclosure

Global Banking and Finance Review is an online platform offering news, analysis, and opinion on the latest trends, developments, and innovations in the banking and finance industry worldwide. The platform covers a diverse range of topics, including banking, insurance, investment, wealth management, fintech, and regulatory issues. The website publishes news, press releases, opinion and advertorials on various financial organizations, products and services which are commissioned from various Companies, Organizations, PR agencies, Bloggers etc. These commissioned articles are commercial in nature. This is not to be considered as financial advice and should be considered only for information purposes. It does not reflect the views or opinion of our website and is not to be considered an endorsement or a recommendation. We cannot guarantee the accuracy or applicability of any information provided with respect to your individual or personal circumstances. Please seek Professional advice from a qualified professional before making any financial decisions. We link to various third-party websites, affiliate sales networks, and to our advertising partners websites. When you view or click on certain links available on our articles, our partners may compensate us for displaying the content to you or make a purchase or fill a form. This will not incur any additional charges to you. To make things simpler for you to identity or distinguish advertised or sponsored articles or links, you may consider all articles or links hosted on our site as a commercial article placement. We will not be responsible for any loss you may suffer as a result of any omission or inaccuracy on the website.

Finance

US tariffs a drag on EU confidence, jobs, ECB study finds

Published by Global Banking and Finance Review

Posted on October 10, 2025

Featured image for article about Finance

FRANKFURT (Reuters) -Only a small minority of euro zone workers fear that U.S. tariffs will jeopardise their jobs but that could still create a drag for an already sluggish economy, European Central Bank researchers wrote in a blog post on Friday.

The Trump administration imposed a raft of tariffs on EU imports in July, raising the effective tariff rate to around 13.1% from 2.3%, a drag for the bloc as the U.S. remains by far its largest export market.

While only around 15% of workers fear their jobs are at stake because of these tariffs, that could still have a meaningful impact on the economy, the researchers argued in a blog post using data from the bank's most recent Consumer Expectations Survey.

"Workers who expect to lose their jobs are more likely to actually lose them later," the blog argued. "Hence, while the direct impact of U.S. tariffs on jobs appears to be limited, their impact on some workers can be stronger and might add further drag to firm and consumer confidence."

The finding is significant because the ECB expects the bulk of economic growth this year and next to come from domestic consumption, partly on households unwinding their exceptionally high personal savings rates.

However, savings continue to rise and even policymakers are now questioning the robustness of this assumption, given that uncertainty about the economy was not expected to fade any time soon, the accounts of their September meeting showed on Thursday.

These findings then suggest some downside risk to economic growth from tariffs, which could reverberate through an economy only growing at a rate of around 1%.

The ECB's survey shows that workers in industry, construction and trade fear the negative effects of tariffs, while in services and the financial and IT sectors workers see themselves as most exposed.

"This is especially the case for workers in Ireland and the Netherlands, which host the European headquarters for many U.S. firms and are very open economies," the researchers argued.

(Reporting by Balazs Koranyi)