Eurozone Unemployment Tops 12%
My kids are on spring break for the next couple weeks and I was walking them to the park yesterday afternoon when I was suddenly surrounded by riot cops and TV cameras. Admittedly I was looking down at my phone and not paying attention, but it was surprising how quickly it happened. I looked up and saw I was in front of the Peugeot headquarters on Grande Armée, and the riot cops were bracing for another massive protest over the closing of another plant.
A few minutes ago the Eurozone unemployment numbers were posted, and they went over 12% (ticked up to 12.1%) for the first time in Eurozone history. Greece led the pack with a staggering 27.2%, followed closely by the arguably more dire situation in Spain with 26.7%. Things are tough all over, as they say, and a Zone-wide unemployment rate well into the double digits does not bode well for economies struggling to get back on their feet.
Here in France the lack of jobs has been Hollande's biggest hurdle, and his approach to the problem has been less than inspiring. At some point the French are going to have to wake up and realize that it's a global economy and they're going to be the perennial victims of it if they don't get with the program and stop being so anti-business.
It'll be interesting to see the effect this has on the Euro going forward. Inflation is at its lowest point in Eurozone history, so we can probably expect the ECB to lower rates (why not? everyone else is doing it).
It's hard to imagine a scenario where the Eurozone stays together without some form of shared...I don't know...governance. But I just don't see the Northern European members signing off on something like that unless they're given a massive seat at the table and the power to rein in Southern European excesses.
What do you guys think? How long is this kind of unemployment sustainable? Will the Eurozone come around to a more capitalist way of thinking to right the ship, or will they double down on the policies which got them to this point?
This long term unemployment - especially youth unemployment (50%+?!) - is going to be what crushes the Eurozone economies, not government debt.
We are all screwed until Merkel gets through her election..
That massive seat the North keeps asking (read: hoping) for is exactly what the South will never agree to, lest them be ostracized even more by the "rich Europeans of the North" as the Southern Europeans think of them.
My MD is Portuguese and i have this discussion at least once a week whenever a new (worse than expected) print comes out of Eu - his friends and family back home absolutely hate ze Germans not merely due to the inherent jealousy of the powerhouse economy, but rather because they feel the Germans got the bigger part of the carrot stick when signing up for this single nation bloc.They don't feel at ALL it had anything to do with excessive borrowing beyond one's means - after all, a nation borrowing heavily and not being able to finance itself is precisely why it issues sov debt (according to him/their way of thinking). One country was doing it - they were ALL doing it. If a tree falls in the forest, does anyone hear? If a nation reaches its outstanding debt threshold, at what point before the inevitable crash in bonds does the alarm have to sound to warn people?
I think they'll keep doubling down on ever-elusive, unclear (OMT), quasi-socialist (redistribution of wealth) policies since in their head, the disintegration of the EZ (which starts with the first domino which chooses to fall first, be it Slovakia or Spain) is simply not a possibility.
I think the overall issue is not unemployment itself. I think the bigger issue is that our society and our social-economic idea no longer seem to fix things as they should. Austerity doesn't work (causes decreased demand and higher unemployment). Governmental economic stimulus doesn't work (either creates bubbles, causes economic glut in the upper income tiers, and expands debt accumulation). So what's the solution? What we may be seeing is a point where society has to enter/accept a new paradigm on how to do things. What that is I have no clue.
As much as I feel bad for Europe, I see similar aspects building up in the US. Since the "end" of the recession, our participation rate has fallen from 66.1% to 63.3% (a 30+ year low). Almost a million people have dropped out of the labor force since the beginning of the 2013 (2.1 since March of 2012). Our youth unemployment rate (ages 16-19) is over 23%. Things are certainly bad in Europe, but they're not the pretty here in the US.
If the BLS was measuring unemployment the same way as Greece, unemployment would be around 23%.
Unrelated to this thread --- your quote is actually Jadakiss.
I have a trip planned to Europe in December (from US), perhaps now is a good time to take out some Euros
Eddie, did you ever do a post on why you left the states to become a cheese eating surrender monkey?
I think the French will do what they do every summer per tradition: take to the streets.
Vacation is for the poor and unemplyed.
Well let's tackle this by addressing 2 questions: is the unemployment sustainable, and will the Eurozone become more capitalist?
To answer the first, no, I don't think so. The issue isn't even with the 12% overall number (this varies largely by country anyway). The issue is with massive unemployment of young people (also varies by country, but is much higher across the board). Granted we have the same issue here (the difference being huge imbalance between those w/ and w/o college degrees in the US), but we seem to have policy makers that at least pretend like it is the single biggest problem we have, whereas is Europe large unemployment seems to be much more tolerable. But inevitably, large unemployment drags on resources, and when there are less available, and generous social insurance programs like exist in the Eurozone, eventually the well runs dry.
To answer the second, also no. I think before the Eurozone becomes more capitalist it will fail. If Germany could all of a sudden cut the cord with the Eurozone, it would be able to sustain it's socialist policies for the foreseeable future, no problem. I think if France cut the cord as well, after the fuckhead in office today, you'd see austerity measures, an even stricter policy towards immigration, and an eventual recovery of the overall economy (and then back to the socialist gravy train). I think this will happen before the whole continent has to change under the EU umbrella to help push a couple bad eggs up the hill. I could also see a scenario where the northern countries revoke or limit poorly performing countries membership. A kind of "we bail you out Spain, and then you have no say in what happens" I think eventually Spain just leaves all together. The fact is that northern European nations can compete in a world economy even with their socialist policies, and I think before they're willing to give up a lifestyle, they'll give up the EU acronym.
That is incredible to see how staggering the unemployment is there.
I just see a circular problem. Some European countries aren't competitive with their laws, regulations and taxation. Things aren't an issue when the economy is rocking and rolling. When it slows down these weaker economies get pounded.
And what do people do in a democracy when things go bad? They look to the government for help, which it happily provides. You run up debt or increase taxes and the cycle gets worse and worse until you have this quagmire.
Any attempt to make the labor force more competitive will be met with stiff resistance. More taxes and more restrictions will only make things worse. You can only deficit spend so far (looks like Europe hit the breaking point). So now you have this economy where you have to have austerity, which hurts you. You can't tax more because the levels are already extremely high and you can't relax labor laws because it will only result in more law offs (although I think long term it would be better).
So essentially, Europe is kind of fucked.
Sadly, the EZ is not the only one who is kind of fucked ...
How is this a surprise? Spain prior to joining the EU was at roughly 17% unemployment and France was about 13% Not a lot has changed for them.
This European Union idea was honestly a much smarter way for Germany to go about conquering Europe. Kudos to them.
How long is this unemployment sustainable? Well, looking at only demography, a lot of the countries in the European are still having record levels of immigration from unskilled (although a few skilled) individuals. England, France... even Italy. I think from the demographic standpoint, we're definitely going to see shit get fucked up in Europe due to a disproportionately high unskilled labor force.
What I think this means for the Eurozone is that this isn't going to hit the numbers as quickly, (since a lot of these people aren't fully registered as citizens yet), yet bound to help induce the mass hysteria which is taking a hold of Europe in general. I think due to the more political nature of the ECB, inflation will definitely shoot up in order to look like they're trying to do something.
Whatever it means for the economy though, I think that the primary cause of this whole mess is more about social unrest than we care to think. I had a friend who recently went to Germany who said that it's quite clear that the German's are getting tired of having to be the arbiter of this whole situation, and that there's this whole growing sentiment that the other countries are just kind of hindering it's own development. I think politically, each country really does want to be on it's own, but it's bureaucracy that holds it together.
these numbers are artificially high, plenty of people out there doing work that the government doesnt know about, so they still claim $$$$$.
It's pretty bad sure, i have my own big mac index for this.
What's the nationality of the person serving me the big mac.
In london, it's spanish.
Read into that as you will.
I came across this the other day: 'What is happening in Europe now is essentially the same, almost totally analogous, to what happened in the U.S. in 1789. It is an interesting comparison.'
In 1776, the colonies declared independence from Great Britain. We didn't have a country. We had independent states that had a treaty with each other, called the Articles of Confederation, and it was similar to the Maastricht Treaty that created the European Union and the euro currency. The independent states had debt problems and they had tariffs with each other. It wasn't until 13 years later, 1789, that those states started to form a central government, largely because of their debt problems. There was a constitutional convention, and we formed a country and we chose a president. We formed a treasury and imposed central taxation. That gave us the ability to produce revenue for the country and restructure our debts. There was the ability to have taxation and to issue bonds and to borrow. Europe does not have an ability to borrow. It doesn't have central taxation, that's material, and it doesn't have a treasury. It is a collection of countries operating for their own individual needs.
Would this be a possibility for Europe? - Obviously not under a single country but an overall 'board of governance'.
Definitely an interesting comparison. There is a key difference though in the nature of the two entities (colonial North America and Europe); a key difference that will make Europe MUCH more difficult to resolve than the issues of the colonies and the articles of confederation.
The 13 original states were all bounded by the common bound of having fought for independence against the British. They were ethnically, linguistically, and culturally all pretty homogeneous. In fact, the only difference between the different colonies were economic (and on a small level, religious). Not to mention there wasn't centuries of bad blood and historic rivalry between the colonies (unlike our cheese eating friend across the atlantic).
Europe won't accept central governance because of the historic antagonism between the various countries. Remember; a significant portion of Europe is over 65, therefore alive during the period when European countries were literally bombing each other. I think that that's something us Americans tend to overlook when we ask ourselves, "why can't these people get their shit together?"
Sure it was an interview by Dalio back in 2012: http://online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424053111904370004577390023566…
I am always perplexed when people say "austerity doesn't work". What does that even mean??
It means that in some cases, countries have lowered government spending/raised taxes, but the economy has declined so much as a result that the federal debt has increased.
1) Raising taxes is the most counter-intuitive form of austerity, IMO
2) What do people expect happens when the government cuts spending? The economy to get a boost?? If this were the case, everyone will immediately cut all government spending. It takes time for economic policy to achieve the intended goals; if you've borrowed yourself so far into a corner that you can't afford to wait for the economy to rebound post-spending cuts, then you're in serious trouble
Maybe Europe needs a war or two, I dunno.
I don't really care for the austerity vs. Krugman debate raging on the blogosphere, but my take on Krugman et al's arguments would be:
Not saying I agree or disagree -- I have my own macroeconomic theories (which, like all macroeconomic theories, are probably bullshit) -- but that would be the condensed argument, at least as I see it.
This is the typical modern day dilemma that in my opinion, will eventually lead to the demise of modern society. Everyone knows the problem, everyone sees symptoms of the problem, but no one wants to take responsibility because it's beyond redemption. It's just a ticking time bomb matter at this point, and it's the end result of our leaders deferring the problem by trying to avoid getting their hands dirty, or, they are trying to hide how dirty their hands actually are.
Spain's 26.7% include people who are working part-time but who wants to be working full time (e.g. an engineer fliping burgers part-time who wants to work as an engineer full time).
Here, this category of individuals is not included in the unemployment numbers. When you adjust this for Spain's unemployment number, you get a figure of around 15%.
So before getting all nervous and posting these figures, just make sure you realize that the methodology to compute these government numbers varries from one country to another.
Only 15%?? Sign me up!
I don't see a way out. They have to cut spending, which they hate to do. Raising taxes isn't going to help as the rates are already too high. There is no desire to actually make it easier to do business in Europe either. China sure as hell isn't going to become less competitive and the rest of the developing world is simply going to become more competitive as time goes by.
I don't think that this level of unemployment is sustainable. There is a lack of utilisation of skills, especially among the youth. If this dire situation continues, what types of political parties could be elected in? The attempt to maintain the stability of the Eurozone by fiscal prudence may be undermined by the effects of the policies. We can't have an expansionary fiscal policy, but austerity seems like putting salt on a wound.
The good part about these protests is that they typically highlight some of the work ethic issues that you would expect from people (not all people, to be fair) living in southern European countries. There were a ton of protests in Spain when I was there last year. Typically, the protest would pop up suddenly, and then disburse within the hour, leaving only empty Cruzcampo cans as evidence that anything happened.
Why bother spending so much time at a protest when you have to get ready to go out later that night?
Germany leaves EU, problem solved.
France in 15-20 years nationalizes all assets of production and renames itself to Soviet Union Try 2.
Done and Done
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