Long term unemployment in Europe

Do we, at the moment, need more jobs or more ‘labour market flexibility’ and ‘structural reforms’ to lower long term unemployment in the European Union? The fourteen EU countries with the highest unemployment, including some with quite flexible labour markets, are also the fourteen countries with the highest long-term unemployment rate. In the meantime, the politicians of the ECB keep pursuing policies which result in low interest rates in countries with lower unemployment and high rates in countries with high unemployment (even though they concede that it these high rates not only hamper growth but also caused the present banking crisis…).

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