Good News on Workers Day

 

This Workers Day, Perhaps it is time to consider how good we have it in South Africa.

 

I am by no stretch of the imagination an economist; these quotes and figures are collected from an international news site

http://rt.com/news/

But if you have a look at these statistics, suddenly, it doesn’t look that much greener on the other side.

 

Unemployment numbers in Europe are breaking records.

 

The latest unemployment data, issued by Eurostat, shows a record 12.1% of the Eurozone’s population is jobless. Top of the unemployment list are countries that have undergone EU bank bailouts.

The overall number of people currently out of work in the Eurozone has reached 19.21 million.

 

Austerity measures have really hit the little guy – Greece – who has the worst unemployment, according to Eurostat’s survey for March 2013, published on Tuesday. The country has more than a quarter of its citizens jobless (Eurostat reveals figure of 27.2% for January 2013).

 

The number of unemployed is expected to rise even further after Athens agreed to sack 15,000 civil servants as part of something called a bailout “tranche.”

 

Other countries affected by austerity measures are Spain and Portugal who also see their unemployment levels nearing those seen only during the Great Depression.

That said; bigger countries are suffering too.  France has 5 million jobless, an all-time high for them too.

For those aged 25 and below, in countries like Spain and Greece, the unemployment rate is as high as close to 60%

Some believe as many as 30-40% of young Italians have emigrated elsewhere.

Ireland saw 63,000 people leave the country last year, which is the highest level of emigration in a decade.

Pieter Cleppe, Head of Brussels Office of Open Europe says; “It's a trend. If you look at the figures of countries like Ireland, some people argue that a whole generation has left,”

He goes on to say; “Let us not forget to mention that those emigrating aren't usually the old folks but the young ones, leaving an additional problem for the upcoming age crisis.”

These are so called first world countries that on paper seem to be in a worse-off condition than us here in sunny South Africa. Somehow we find ourselves, if ever so slightly, in a more enviable position than our over-seas neighbours.

 How the hell did that happen?