Graphs of the day. Employment rates for the young and the old, Spain and Italy.

One of the most astonishing recent developments is the breakneck speed with which the Italian employment rate for the 55-64 generation has been increasing (graph 1). For people who are not too familiar with these statistics: the Italian change is extremely fast.

Employment rates in countries like Sweden and Iceland are, respectively, about 70 and 80% (this is the highest rate of Europe), which means that the Italian rate is still quite low (graph 2).To quite an extent the difference can be explained by low Italian employment rates for 54+ women. But the flexibility and dynamism Italy shows comes at a cost. Employment of the 25-54 generation is declining (graph 2). This contrary to the situation in Spain, where employment rates for the younger as well as the old are still pretty low but increasing. Italy does not need job swapping dynamism and musical chairs flexibility at this moment – it needs jobs.

Aside – the best blogpost about the recent situation in Greece has been written by Y. Varoufakis, look here. The answer of his supposed opponent Dijsselbloem can be summarized as follows: