Tweet

There are at lest two faces of unemployment in Europe. Unemployment remains a matter of great concern in a majority of countries. Numerous countries have high or very high unemployment rates and show no sign of any real improvement in this regard: Greece (24.6%), Spain (20.9%), Portugal (12.4%), Italy (11.3%) and France (10.6%). In contrast, 3 countries are marked by very low unemployment rate: Switzerland (3.4%), Germany (4.3%) and the UK (5.1%). And, of course, the biggest concern is the inability to tackle youth unemployment. The figures are particularly damning for the governments: an average 22% in the Eurozone as a whole, but around 50% in Spain and Greece. And for years high skilled young people are forced to emigrate for work due to a lack of professional opportunities in their own countries. In January 2016 more than 4.4 million young persons (under 25) were unemployed in the EU-28, from 7.1% in Germany to 49% in Greece. The global economy is entering a period of lower potential growth and as a result a period of higher unemployment. We are also entering an era in which new technologies will wipe out many jobs, in particular unskilled jobs. Today, the only sensible response to face the challenge of unemployment is to improve quickly and deeply the education and training system in order to meet new skills requirements. Yet, in many European countries the educational system has still not responded to the challenges of globalisation. In 2015, it was estimated that 13% of people aged 15-24 were neither in education nor in employment. In an increasingly competitive world, this represents a major risk for our countries.

Tweet