The macro-economic situation in Europe continues to be extremely challenging.
A number of Member States are in a double-dip recession and labour markets are in a crisis not seen in the EU for at least two decades.
What is more, the outlook is not getting better. The European Commission’s Autumn forecast, presented on Wednesday, projects GDP growth in 2013 to be only 0.4% in the EU27 and 0.1% in the Euro area. Employment in the EU27 is projected to fall by -0.8% this year and by another -0.5% next year.
Europe was experiencing a mild recovery in 2010 and early 2011, but for more than a year now, growth has been zero or negative, and unemployment in the EU27 has risen from some 23 million in mid-2011 to nearly 26 million at present, and it is projected to rise still further during next year.
The number of long-term unemployed has also increased since last year and reached 10.7 million, which accounts for 4.5 % of the active population.
And a particularly alarming aspect of joblessness in Europe is youth unemployment which stands at a historical high of 22.8 % as of September 2012.
It is becoming increasingly obvious that growth will not pick up in the absence of a credible solution to the systemic crisis of the Economic and Monetary Union. Austerity measures and far-reaching structural reforms have been undertaken by most European countries, but have not been sufficient to achieve stabilisation in financial markets or decrease sovereign bond yields for the so-called peripheral countries. Actions of the European Central Bank have helped a great deal, but no bond-buying programme can – on its own – assure financial markets about the irreversibility of the euro when the underlying economic developments across the Economic and Monetary Union are so different…
Choosen excerpts by JMM from
via European Commission : Investing for a job-rich recovery in Europe.
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Job Market Monitor 
An outstanding share! I have just forwarded this onto a colleague who was doing a little homework on this. And he in fact bought me breakfast due to the fact that I stumbled upon it for him… lol. So let me reword this…. Thank YOU for the meal!! But yeah, thanks for spending the time to talk about this matter here on your blog.
Posted by Carmine Zwerschke | November 15, 2012, 3:45 pm