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Unemployment in Europe

The decision of the Informal Council meeting was announced under following title:

Restoring confidence, boosting growth and jobs - 01/02/2012

"EU leaders agree on urgent action to bring down youth unemployment, support small businesses and tap into the EU market, and set date for signing new treaty on economic policy coordination.
EU leaders agreed on the need for urgent priority action at EU and national level to boost growth and jobs (with special focus on fighting youth unemployment, deepening the single market and helping small businesses).
They agreed the “Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in EMU” which reinforces stability and is a further piece in the puzzle which will allow other aspects of the comprehensive response to the sovereign debt crisis to fall into place.
EU leaders also reached agreement on the European Stability Mechanism Treaty – a permanent fund to help vulnerable euro area countries.

Reducing youth unemployment
Every EU country agreed to prepare a national jobs plan. This will include measures like shifting taxes away from labour and reducing labour market segmentation which can improve employment opportunities for the young and low-skilled.
Action teams will be created with eight EU countries (Spain, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Ireland) with above-average youth unemployment."

Source: http://ec.europa.eu/news/eu_explained/120201_en.htm

Again, the crucial mistake made in this approach is the reinforcement of the national approach as if this extreme exclusion of the other would bring about a common market! This is said despite what the President of the European Commission, Mr. Barrosso said when debriefing the European Parliament about the outcome of the Informal Council Meeting on 30.1.2012:

"The second issue I wish to highlight is linked to the Commission’s determination to maintain the role of the European Union Institutions and of the Community method in the new Treaty.
We are now entering into a new phase of economic governance, based on the European Semester, where governments recognise that even matters under their national competence, such as employment, should be dealt with at European as well as national level.
Due to the high levels of interdependence between our economies, we can no longer deal with economic and social matters only on a national level. When it comes to issues such as job creation, there is clearly a European dimension. National action, indeed also regional action, should be supported and complemented by European action."

(Source: http://www.iewy.com/41139-jose-manuel-durao-barroso-president-of-the-european-commission-debrief-to-the-european-parliament-following-the-informal-european-council-meeting-of-30th-january-european-parliament-brussels.html)

Barrosso is fighting to retain the influence of the European Commission, even though power has shifted much more towards key players like France and Germany along with Italy, so that the renationalization of EU programs which began in 1999 has continued to reinforce a contradictory European policy. The position of Barrosso is itself most contradictory as he wishes to retain the initiative while in fact he has to carry out the orders to key member states.

Social plight of Unemployment

Typical and yet difficult to gauge what this social phenomenon really means is the great number of people who circulate around cafes to collect money, get some cigarette or try to sell something like umbrellas or even some gadgets like watches. As this affects the economy with many more informal salesmen out on the streets and who stem from migrant groups, there take place often pitched battles between various groups while off and on the police gives chase as well.

 

Man sleeping on the pavement near Kolonaki Square in Athens

 

Record high unemployment in 2012

The European Union’s statistics office in Luxembourg announced Oct. 31, 2012

 

That’s the highest since the data series started in 1995. The data also showed that youth unemployment is at 23.3 percent, with Spain’s rate more than double that, at 54.2 percent. A separate report showed inflation cooled to 2.5 percent in October from 2.6 percent.

That means that 18.5 million people (EUGNEMUQ) were unemployed in the euro area in September, up 146,000 from the previous month. At 25.8 percent, Spain had the highest jobless rate in the currency bloc. Portugal’s unemployment rate was at 15.7 percent, while Ireland reported a jobless rate of 15.1 percent. France’s jobless rate was at 10.8 percent, while Austria had the lowest rate at 4.4 percent.

In Greece, it is said that one out of four is without a job.

EU labor report in 2010

Europe posts record unemployment estimated to amount to 10.1 percent in April.
This is the highest since the euro came into being in 1999.

It means almost 16 million people were out of work across the 16 countries that share the euro.

The numbers reached more than 23 million in the 27-nation EU as a whole, including non-euro giants Britain and Poland, 2.4 million more than one year earlier.

The latest figures show US unemployment running at 9.9 percent, and Japan's just 5.0 percent.

Throughout the EU, only Germany recorded a fall in unemployment over the full year, from 7.6 percent to 7.1 percent.

Deficit-plagued Spain, with a 19.7 percent rate beaten only by Latvia, saw unemployment among under-25s reach a dizzying 40.3 percent in the first quarter of 2010.

Most Dutch positive about economy

Thursday 30 September 2010

A growing percentage of the Dutch population is happy with the economy, according to figures released on Thursday by the government's nsocio-cultural planning office SCP. The figure rose from 67% in the second quarter of 2010 to 73% in the last three months.

Only 16% of respondents are worried about their personal finances and just 6% are worried about losing their job.

Despite this, the economy remains high on the political agenda for many people, says the SCP.

© DutchNews.nl

Spain jobless claims rise 1.2% in September

MADRID (MarketWatch) 4th of October 2010

"The number of jobless claims in Spain rose 1.2% in September, a rise of 48,102 persons, the second straight month of rising claims, bringing the total number of unemployed to 4,017,763. On an annual basis, the number claims rose 8.3%. The Spanish secretary general for employment, Maravillas Rojo said much of the rise in September was seasonal, with a 2.3% rise in jobless claims for the services sector, while in the hard-hit construction sector, jobless claims fell 1.3% and in industry 0.9%, and 2.9% in agriculture. Data from the European Commission last week showed Spain's jobless numbers at a new record of 20.5% in August, the highest in the European Union."

By Barbara Kollmeyer

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/spain-jobless-claims-rise-12-in-september-2010-10-04

 

UN labor report shows drastic increase in youth unemployment

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5895285,00.html?maca=en-newsletter_en_bulletin-2097-html-nl

There is to be noted a ten year high in youth employment throughout the world. A typical example told in Athens September 2010 by a mother who sent her daughter to learn altogether five languages with one special one, namely Turkish. After graduation the daughter could not find anywhere a job. Now she is cleaning dishes in the same restaurant where her mother works. Everyday pass by eight to ten youngsters asking for a job, may that be cleaning the floor or some other manual job. They are willing to do anything in order to earn some money. In turn this has any parent worried what future the children will have especially when they have completed their studies and then without any excuse, socially speaking, not to look for a job.

The problem of the unemployed in Greece is aggrevated by following factors. Not only are the austerity measures to reduce the state deficit just a cut in almost everything but the Greek labor market never experienced the kind of transparency so that people are hired according to qualifications and experience. Rather the means of getting a paid job relies heavily on having the right connections and in knowing what prerequisites have to be fulfilled by oneself in order to be recommended by someone with influence and power.

At a general level it means money is not given to everyone and for everything. There is no direct link between development and investment in the youth at general level. For instance, an industrialist may sponsor an exhibition but certainly not something more demanding i.e. the publication of ideas developed out of a vision for the future. Sponsorship is exhausted when the usual trade off remains at wishing to have the name visible on the banner of the exhibition for having donated some money but nothing further. Visibility is still a matter of showing presence in one way or another but the form must not be critical or a challenge to the system.

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