Thursday, December 6, 2012

The Greek Crisis in One Chart

Number of Greeks employed, since 2004.


What's going on here is multi-fold. The Greek "security net" provides great incentive not to work. Greek regulations on employers makes it very dangerous to hire new employees. And, finally, if people aren't working, goods and services aren't being produced, resulting in a crashing standard of living.

(via ZeroHedge)


1 comment:

  1. Note the sharp downward slope of the graph began in 2009 and the rate of decline doesn't seem to have changed at all through to the present, despite having the unemployment rate rise over this time period to around 25%. As suggested by RW's comments, employment going into free fall like this for more than three years isn't just because of Greece's debt problems. It really has to do with the fact that Greek labor isn't competitive and Greek businesses are saddled with unsustainable labor costs that they are trying to rectify. Deregulation, privatization, and eliminating counter-productive public policy (like overly generous unemployment compensation) would seem like must-dos in the dire economic situation that Greece faces, but, from everything I can gather, things haven't changed much in Greece at all, and the Greeks are basically pinning all their economic hopes on the EU bailout.

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