OECD: Rising employment overshadowed by unprecedented wage stagnation

This story is brought to you in association with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD   The OECD Employment Outlook 2018 says that the employment rate for people aged 15-74 in the OECD area (36 countries) reached 61.7% in the OECD area at the end of 2017. For the first time there are […]

Extra mild ECB tapering of QE and zero interest rates keep euro low

Last Thursday, Mario Draghi, the President of the European Central Bank performed again his superb balancing act, between the needs of the South and the demands of the North. He led the Governing Council of ECB, Eurozone’s most powerful body, to map the exit road from the extraordinary monetary measures (Quantitative Easing) state as frictionlessly […]

ECB intervenes to clean May’s and Schäuble’s mess

Last Thursday 8 June, on the day the Britons were punishing Theresa May for her mistakes and arrogance, the European Central Bank under Mario Draghi was preparing for a less favorable politico-economic environment and a much longer disinflationary period. Indirectly, Mario Draghi blamed the dying out inflation on the avowed neoliberals, of the kind of […]

Trump to run America to the tune of his business affairs

In the short period after the 8 November election that brought him to the Oval Office of the White House for the next four years, President – elect Donald Trump has more or less outlined the policy mix he is going to implement as from 20 January. His choices for key government positions and his […]

EU Commission: a rise in wages and salaries may help create more jobs

The Eurozone unemployment rate in February remained stubbornly stuck at the high level of 11.9% since October 2013. According to Eurostat, the EU’s statistical service, the EU28 unemployment rate was 10.6% in February 2014, one decimal point lower than the 10.7% of January this year. Let’s dig a bit into unemployment. On an absolute number […]

EU Commission says falling labour remuneration leads to deflation and damages growth prospects

  The social situation in the European Union keeps degrading and in many countries it has compromised the social cohesion. Yesterday the EU Commission published its quarterly review on “Employment and Social Situation”, with the unbelievable conclusion that, “The recent economic recovery has not yet been able to create new jobs and the social situation […]

‘Habitual residence’ rules deprive EU workers from social benefits

With a timely move the European Commission published yesterday a guide on the application of the ‘Habitual Residence Test’, in this way permanently blocking what has been termed as social ‘benefit tourism’. By the same token, the Commission also erased the rightful expectation of people who are employed as ‘posted workers’ in another EU member […]

Germany: A grand coalition may trouble employers and bankers

The very likely formation of a grand coalition government in Germany, led by the CDU-CSU Christian democrats, under Chancellor Angela Merkel and comprising the SPD socialists, will not be without tangible results in at least two crucial fronts. The wages of Germany’s hard working millions and the long overdue rearrangement of Eurozone’s banking system, are […]

More unemployment and lower wages to make European workers competitive?

The statement that unemployment constantly increases in the European Union has become a banal observation during the past three crisis years. When however it comes to long-term unemployment, comprising workers without a job for more than one year, the end result can be that the labour force of this country or region is reduced by […]

Is the EU’s enlargement over-stretched?

The myth that the European Union is a seamless economic volume is belied not only after the latest developments, with Berlin and Paris working hard to institutionalise the fragmentation of EU’s financial markets. The dysfunction is also depicted by hard-core macroeconomic and labour market statistics. Again it’s not only the huge differences in the relative […]