ECB says Italy hit hardest by crisis on jobs front

(ANSA) - Rome, December 17 - The European Central Bank said in its monthly bulletin on Thursday that Italy was the eurozone country to have most suffered the impact of the crisis on the employment front. "In Italy, the crisis has had a significantly more persistent adverse impact on total employment, which has remained largely unchanged, in contrast to both aggregate euro area developments and those in many of the smaller euro area economies," the ECB said, referring to the period from the second quarter of 2013 to the first quarter of 2015.