EU – To act on unemployment

Over seven years since the onset of the financial crisis, the unemployment situation in the Eurozone remains a big concern. As of June this year the unemployment rate across the euro area was 11.1%, compared with 5.3% in the United States:

Even allowing for the fact that US unemployment has been considerably lower since 2000, the chart above illustrates just how poor the labour market recovery has been in Europe.

Of course, the story for Europe is not as simple as that headline figure would suggest. Within the euro area there is a wide divergence of labour-market slack between member states with unemployment in Germany (4.7%) and the Czech Republic (4.9%) the lowest, and the highest in Greece (25.6% in April 2015) and Spain (22.5%).

However, while this may appear to be a national problem for member states, Europe does face a common problem that will require it to put all of its resources (including all available workers) to bear if it is going to be able to overcome it. That is, an ageing population.

via Here is why Europe needs to act on unemployment – Agenda – The World Economic Forum.