More than five years after the implosion of Lehman Brothers in 2008 triggered a global financial collapse, Europe’s economy remains on fragile footing. Lending to businesses is contracting, and investment is weak.

There were indications, though, that the labor market might be lagging the broader economy.

A separate report from Eurostat showed that euro zone retail sales rose 1.4 percent in November from a month earlier, when they had dropped by 0.4 percent. In Berlin, the Economy Ministry reported that orders for German factories rebounded by 2.1 percent in November from October, when they suffered a decline of a similar size.

Taken together, the data show that “the euro zone economy is growing modestly,” said Christian Schulz, an economist at Berenberg Bank in London. “The labor market is stabilizing, and retail sales are rebounding nicely.” That, he said, suggests that “the decline in domestic demand is over.”

Other hopeful signs have emerged in Europe lately.

A survey of purchasing managers by Markit Economics showed output near the highest it had been for two and a half years. Ireland experienced strong demand upon its return to the international bond market Tuesday after exiting its bailout. The Irish government sold 3.75 billion euros, or about $5.1 billion, of 10-year bonds priced to yield just 3.543 percent, with more than four-fifths of the demand coming from overseas investors.

Ireland isn’t the only euro zone nation to find the bond market more hospitable. At the height of the sovereign debt crisis, officials had feared that Spain and Italy would be forced to seek bailouts because their borrowing costs were becoming unsustainable. But yields on Italian and Spanish government debt have fallen sharply from their peaks, to well below 4 percent — welcome news for countries that will be tapping the market for hundreds of billions of euros for refinancing this year.