But the statistics do not explain why some countries have much higher rates of joblessness than others with Greece posting nearly ten times the rate of unemployment as the Czech Republic and Spain, the same size as Poland, having nearly five times as many out of work as the EU’s most easterly member state.
One of the most curious aspects is how well the former communist countries have done in getting unemployment down to very low levels. The transition to a market economy has been rough but with Czechia, Hungary and Poland all posting unemployment rates below that of Britain, where commentators boast endlessly of the UK’s high levels of job creation, it would seem that former communist economies have adapted well. [...]
There seems no correlation either with the colour of the government. Spain was ruled by socialists until 2012 and has just booted out the centre-right PP government but unemployent remains stubbornly high. Greece switched from a conservative New Democracy team in 2015 to Europe’s most left government – at least in terms of the rhetoric of Yanis Varoufakis – but has been unable to tackle unemployment seriously (It was 22.1 per cent a year ago). [...]
Nor is it possible to read across trade union density with unemployment. France has the lowest number of workers paying membership dues to trade unions – eight per cent of the workforce – but twice the level of unemployment as Hungary and Poland where unions organise 12 per cent of the workforce according to European Trade Union Institute figures.
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