{"id":1388,"date":"2013-05-22T21:00:25","date_gmt":"2013-05-22T20:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/?p=1388"},"modified":"2013-06-11T08:22:18","modified_gmt":"2013-06-11T07:22:18","slug":"the-eurozones-most-glaring-imbalance-southern-european-unemployment-vs-german-labor-shortages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/2013\/05\/22\/the-eurozones-most-glaring-imbalance-southern-european-unemployment-vs-german-labor-shortages\/","title":{"rendered":"The Eurozone\u2019s Most Glaring Imbalance: Southern European Unemployment vs. German Labor Shortages"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"8577040\"<\/a>Several economic publications and stats suggest that since the outbreak of the global financial crisis in 2008, the unemployment rates in European countries have only risen. According to Global Research<\/a>, by today the number of unemployed workers in Spain and France has reached all-time highs. The same disturbing figures are also seen in Greece, Portugal, Italy and Cyprus. However, as a recent article<\/a> in the Financial Times (FT) indicates, in contrast to this prevailing unemployment problem in the Eurozone Germany faces quite an opposite challenge, namely a worker shortage.<\/p>\n

Having Europe\u2019s largest economy, the German labor market seems to be especially short of skilled workers. As Ms von der Leyen, Germany\u2019s minister for labor and social affairs, puts it, the problem lies in the shrinking of working-age population. She believes that for managing this problem, Germany should involve more women in skilled jobs, prolong the working tenure of older employees, train the young population with better skills, and attract more skilled workers from abroad.<\/p>\n

Relating to the latest notion of migrant workers, the minister wants to match German\u2019s demand for workers with job shortages in other European countries. Specifically, Ms von der Leyen believes that a dual vocational training system should be introduced in countries with high youth unemployment. The dual vocational training, which is already well organized in Germany, implies complementing the theoretical knowledge acquired from public institutions with practical training from jobs in the private sector. As the FT article indicates, Germany does not only collaborate with such countries as Italy, Spain or Portugal on building up this vocational training, but also offers vocational training for foreigners in Germany.<\/p>\n

Following up on the same topic, another FT article<\/a> calls the duality of high Eurozone unemployment rates and Germany\u2019s workforce shortage the continent\u2019s most glaring imbalance. Naturally, migration is seen as a possible solution for this imbalance, and the latest figures from Germany\u2019s labor office suggests that this solution is increasingly being implemented. Specifically, the migration from Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece to Germany has risen by 8 per cent over the previous 12 month.<\/p>\n

However, with labor shortages so acute, Germany should not just welcome migrant workers, but also actively attract and recruit it. However, as discussed in one of my previous articles<\/a>, making the German labor market truly accessible for other Europeans is not that easy because of language barriers. Apart from language, the FT publication also notes barriers of tax and pension rules, as well as cultural differences. Even though such challenges make the idea of a single European market quite idealistic, there are ways of bringing it a bit closer to reality. As such, following the example of the Bavarian labor ministry, Germany\u2019s federal labor ministry and employment agency decided to roll out a nationwide scheme of support for migrant workers. This scheme includes supporting a migrant worker with paperwork, finding accommodation\u2026 and learning the German language. Such initiatives are good to see, as they should benefit cross-country talent flows, and increase self-initiated expatriation, which in the end should help to lower the Eurozone\u2019s most glaring imbalance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Several economic publications and stats suggest that since the outbreak of the global financial crisis in 2008, the unemployment rates in European countries have only risen. According to Global Research, by today the number of unemployed workers in Spain and France has reached all-time highs. The same disturbing figures are also seen in Greece, Portugal, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":345,"featured_media":1391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18330],"tags":[38491,44880,747,44879,1411],"class_list":["post-1388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-views-and-news-about-expatriates","tag-eurozone","tag-foreign-workforce","tag-germany","tag-labor-shortages","tag-unemployment"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/345"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1388"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1412,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1388\/revisions\/1412"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}