Millions in Europe sink into unemployment and poverty

[Hannah Bell]

The elections to the European parliament on June 7 take place in the midst of the deepest crisis of capitalism since the 1930s and an extremely tense social situation. Many millions are being plunged into unemployment and poverty, while a small minority of shareholders, stock market speculators and managers have been able to acquire enormous wealth.

The gross domestic product in Europe sank in the first quarter of 2009 compared to one year previously by 4.4 percent. The German economy... by 6.9 percent....the Baltic States...between 10.9 and 18.6 percent. In Britain, nearly 1.5 million people applied for unemployment benefit in March... 80 percent increase compared to one year previously. In Spain, the official unemployment rate stands at 17.4 percent compared to 10.5 percent in May 2008. Unemployment has doubled over the same period in Ireland...trebled in the Baltic states...In countries such as Germany and Austria, the growth in unemployment has been largely delayed by the widespread introduction of short-time working...

European governments are using mass unemployment in order to implement cuts to wages and social conditions. This applies to all governments irrespective of whether they are social-democratic or conservative. The European Commission has become synonymous with deregulation, liberalisation and the dismantling of employee rights....The “Bolkenstein Guidelines” of the EU have circumvented traditional minimum and contract wages as well as workplace standards. The “Flexicurity” demanded by the EU (a hybrid of flexibility and security), has given companies the possibility of imposing dismissals and wage cuts. At the same time, this measure has been implemented to withhold financial support for the unemployed.

Allegedly this withdrawal of unemployment benefit is to encourage the unemployed to find work more quickly. In reality, the measure is aimed at forcing the unemployed to accept cheap wage jobs and facilitating drastic cuts to general wage levels.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jun2009/euro-j01.shtml

[AllentownJake]

1. You know what Dick Cheney and George W. Bush are saying today

"Mission Accomplished"

[Deja Q]

2. Globalization rocks.

:shrug:

[dgibby]

3. Masters of the Universe(aka PTB) hard at work on both sides of the Atlantic.

[Greyhound]

4. One of the prime motives for this disaster.

Buying real assets on the cheap being another The people that matter are squeezing and will continue to squeeze until either we accept their rule or rid ourselves of their system.

"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws." - Mayer Amschel Rothschild

[TimesSquareCowboy]

5. The headline is wrong, isn't it? A rise in unemployment does not equal a rise in poverty

in the EU, does it?

[Hannah Bell]

6. In an EU report released in March of this year, the authors write:

“The recent data show that 16 percent of Europeans are still threatened with poverty. Although a good job is still the best protection against poverty, the fact that 8 percent of those in gainful employment are poor means that a job does not necessarily offer this protection.” The 16 percent of Europeans living in poverty—according to official figures—amounts to 80 million EU citizens.

In every EU country the main victims of unemployment and poverty are children and young people. Another section of the EU report reads: “In the EU children face a higher risk of poverty (19 percent) than the total population. The situation has not improved since 2000.” In March 2009 the unemployment rate for under 25-year-olds was about 18.3 percent across Europe. In Spain, more than one third of this age group is without job. Increasing numbers of high school graduates are unable to find adequate work and are forced to take two or three cheap wage jobs in order to survive.

These averages statistics, however, fail to describe the full extent of the social misery, which prevails in large parts of Europe. If one examines the poverty in individual countries, individual regions and even individual cities, then an enormous geographical divide between rich and poor is evident. In every European country there are regions that are sinking into bitter poverty: southern Spain, southern Italy, East Germany, and large regions in all other countries. Entire regions are plagued by mass unemployment, with social welfare and poverty levels averaging 25 to 50 percent.

Entire suburbs of major cities and former industrial centres in Europe have fallen into ruin. In cities like Paris, Athens, Warsaw or Rome, in the former workers’ and immigrant quarters of Amsterdam, London, Berlin or the German Ruhr district, unemployment and poverty is often two or three times higher than national figures.