Eurozone industrial orders fall, US GDP contraction revised lower

It looks like the eurozone economy is struggling a bit to get out of recession. From Bloomberg:

European industrial orders declined for a ninth month in April as the global recession cut demand for machinery, transport equipment and consumer appliances.

Industrial orders in the 16-member euro region slipped 1 percent from March, when they dropped a revised 0.2 percent, the European Union’s statistics office in Luxembourg said today. From a year earlier, orders slumped 35.5 percent, the biggest annual drop since data were first compiled in 1995.

Meanwhile, the news out of the US has been getting a little better. From Bloomberg:

The U.S. economy shrank at a 5.5 percent annual rate in the first quarter, reflecting declines in inventories, housing and business spending that have since eased.

The contraction in gross domestic product, which was smaller than estimated last month, capped the worst six-month performance in half a century, revised figures from the Commerce Department showed...

Somewhat ominously, though, initial unemployment claims has taken a turn for the worse.

The number of Americans filing claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose last week and the total number receiving payments increased, indicating the labor market may take longer to stabilize. Initial jobless claims rose by 15,000 to 627,000 in the week ended June 20, from a revised 612,000 the week before, the Labor Department said today in Washington.