Inflation hits 37-year high in a first for Danish millennials

Bloomberg

Danish inflation is higher than millennials have ever experienced in their lives.
After a decade of price increases clocking in at less than 2% a year, consumers are now having to contend with a whopping 5.4% gain in March from a year earlier — a level not seen since May 1985, when the internet was in its infancy and the Berlin Wall was still standing.
And they’re going to have to get used to worse. Danish inflation hasn’t peaked yet, spurred by high demand for the country’s goods and services abroad and continuing wage growth, Bjorn Tangaa Sillemann, senior analyst at Danske Bank A/S, said in a note to clients.
Inflation is boosted by energy, as well as wage pressures stemming from labour shortages, after the Nordic nation outperformed its rich peers in dodging the economic fallout from the pandemic. Electricity contributed one percentage point of the annual increase last month, while fuel added about 0.8 percentage point, Statistics Denmark said in a statement.
“It’s absolutely crucial how much you drive a car and how you heat your home,” Sillemann said. “In particular, diesel cars were very expensive to drive in March, after prices rose 17%, the largest monthly price increase to date.”
The finance ministry warned last month that inflation may average 5.5% this year and gross domestic product may fail to grow under a “stagflationary” worst-case scenario that presumes weakening consumer and business confidence, and a stop to oil and gas flows from Russia due to its war in Ukraine.