German unemployment, by contrast, fell to 6.7 percent in January, a decline of a tenth of a percentage point from December.
During that same period, the percentage of people who are uninsured has fallen from 20.3 per cent to 13.2 per cent, a decline of about a third, the D.H.H.S. said.
After centuries of regional dominance, the denomination has been shrinking: last year, the church reported fewer than three hundred thousand baptisms, the lowest number in more than half a century, and a decline of about a third since the peak, in 1972.
A tripling of excise duties — as well as tightened regulations on sales and advertising — has resulted in a decline of about a third in alcohol consumption over the last decade, according to Reuters.
The preference for big houses appears to be dwindling, with only 6percentt of survey respondents telling Trulia that their ideal home is bigger than 3,200 square feet, a decline of nearly a third since 2010.
The European arm of Greenpeace, a green pressure group, still denounces the technology and gloats about a decline of over a tenth in cultivation of GM crops in Europe last year.
Hong Kong's main air carrier, Cathay Pacific Airways, said that its passenger traffic in July was down 21.2percentt from a year earlier, an improvement from a decline of two-thirds in the spring, when the SARS epidemic damaged the tourism industry throughout Southeast Asia.
"It shows something very impressive," he said, "a decline of two-thirds in a measure of something considered very important to social well-being and sense of safety".
The Sprite ad makeover -- shifting from cheeky humor to a more serious style that goes up close and personal, to quote an old slogan -- comes after the brand ended 2000 with a 2percentt decline in sales and a decline of two-tenths of a percentage point in market share.
A peculiarity of the renewed optimism is that the biggest source of unhappiness -- a decline of two-thirds in property prices since a bubble burst in 1997 -- has not really gone away.
