Germany may soon be flirting with the scourge of overemployment. From http://www.dw-world.de/dw/arti…
The number of people looking for a job in Germany has fallen to below the three-million mark, Labor Minister Ursula von der Leyen announced on Wednesday. Unemployment now stands at a seasonally adjusted 7.5 percent.
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Economics Minister Rainer Bruederle, meanwhile, expressed optimism that the positive trend would continue. “This is not just a one-day success,” he said. Unemployment figures have been dropping gradually since mid-2009.
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Just last year, Germany was hit by its steepest downturn in about six decades when the economy contracted by 4.7 percent. But now exports are booming and German companies are reporting solid profits.
During the recession, a government program to subsidize shortened working hours for employees, allowed German companies to avoid layoffs. This meant they were able to respond to an upturn in orders without delays associated with having to rehire workers.
Also: Germany the second-biggest net exporter in the world. How on Earth can people buy cheap crap at Wal-Mart if they’re not a net importer like us?
Add to that health care for everyone with better medical outcomes than us at 35% lower cost, and it’s a recipe for catastrophe. Those people don’t know how %#$*ed they really are.
Angela Merkel is a conservative. And totally unpopular whatever the employment figures… she took austerity first instead of growth, she’ll likely be gone by end of next year, along with Sarkozy and David Cameron in the UK.
let’s not forget about France while we’re at it. Only time will tell us about the fates of Sarcozy and Cameron. These countries are living proof that you just can’t print money and deliver entitlements in order to create jobs and prosperity.
Eighteen months of misery equal to that of California outweigh several decades of the highest standards of living in the world! Plus most of these so called “countrieS” don’t even speak much English!
business pundits is that Merkel is conservative (the neglect to mention that she is only conservative by EU standards). They totally ignore the robust social safety net that props up the economies of Germany and France during crises.
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p>I believe (I could be wrong) that they have a successful relatively protectionist trade policy outside of the Eurozone.