NationStates Jolt Archive

Germany has hit it's highest unemployment rate since the 1930's. In your opinion, how can Germany fix this problem?

German Unemployment (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4307303.stm)

German jobless rate at new record

Unemployment in Germany is at record levels
More than 5.2 million Germans were out of work in February, new figures show.
The figure of 5.216 million people, or 12.6% of the working-age population, is the highest jobless rate in Europe's biggest economy since the 1930s.

The news comes as the head of Germany's panel of government economic advisers predicted growth would again stagnate.

Speaking on German TV, Bert Ruerup said the panel's earlier forecast of 1.4% was too optimistic and warned growth would be just 1% in 2005.

"Do something!"

The growth warning triggered anger even from government supporters, who said the Social Democrat-Green administration of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder had to do more.

"We are not going to create more jobs with growth of 1%," Harald Schartau, head of the Social Democrats in the northern state of North Rhine-Westphalia, told ZDF television.

"We say to our friends in Berlin, you have to persevere and create more impulse for growth."

Many German newspapers had the figures a day ahead, splashing them with angry headlines on Tuesday morning.

Mr Schroeder has staked his career on labour reforms
The mass-market Bild tabloid used red type to splash the phrase, "Do something!" across its front page.

Anger

The German government insists its efforts to tackle the stubbornly-high levels of joblessness with a range of labour market reforms are only just getting under way.

The core is the "Hartz-IV" programme introduced in January to shake up welfare benefits and push people back into work - even if some of the jobs are heavily subsidised.

According to the Federal Labour Office, the changes have contributed to the rise in the official unemployment rate.

Some three quarters of February's 180,000 additions to the jobless total were the result of January's reclassification, it said - although it acknowledged the weak economy and cold weather hitting the construction industry were also to blame.

Different numbers

Still, some measures suggest the picture is not quite so bleak.

For one thing, January's reclassification boosted the jobless total by more than 500,000 that month, as many benefit claimants were added to the list for the first time thanks to the new rules.

Moreover, adjustments for seasonal changes give an overall unemployment level of 4.875 million people or 11.7% - admittedly up 0.3 percentage points from the previous month.

And the most internationally-accepted methodology, designed by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), says Germany had 3.97 million people out of work in January.

The ILO defines an unemployed person as someone who in the previous four weeks had actively looked for work they could take up immediately.

ILO-based figures also suggest that 14,000 new net jobs were created that month, taking the number of people employed to 38.9 million.

Thanks. Nothing new that our politicians are inept idiots who are only out to enrich themselves and make the poor even poorer and the rich richer. Our country is going down the drain - just wait until we have our next revolution here... maybe next year :D

I suggest that Germany cut its corporate tax rate by 11% and lose some of the regulation. It worked wonders for Ireland.

Helpfully violating copyrights :)


NATIONAL stereotypes can become outdated. Some British food today holds its own against French cuisine. Swiss trains do not always run on time. Similarly, Germany's image as the sick man of Europe, with high costs and flabby firms unable to compete in the global marketplace, is now starting to curl at the edges. German business is regaining its vigour.

To make such a claim in the week when new figures showed that Germany's GDP fell by 0.2% in the fourth quarter of last year, leaving output only 0.6% up on a year ago, may seem a touch unworldly. However, coming from a different planet sometimes makes it easier to peer through the conventional wisdom. A Martian landing on Earth today and faced with a choice between investing in America or Germany might well choose the latter.

How can Europe's slowest-growing economy possibly be a good investment? Commentators marvel at the gains in productivity and profits in America in recent years, thanks to firms' aggressive cost-cutting. Yet corporate Germany has made even greater strides to cut costs and improve its competitiveness. A study by Deutsche Bank suggests that Germany's productivity growth has been just as fast as America's since 1995 if both are measured on the same basis. Wages in Germany, however, have grown more slowly, so unit labour costs have fallen. Partly thanks to such pruning, Germany's real trade-weighted exchange rate with the rest of the world (based on relative labour costs) has risen by only 4% since early 2002 despite the surge in the euro against the dollar (see article).

German business is supposedly too flabby to compete in world markets. Yet over the past five years German exports have grown more than three times faster than America's, pushing Germany ahead of America as the world's biggest exporter. Germany is the only G7 country that has increased its share of world exports over the past five years, a period of increasing Chinese competition. America's share of world markets has dropped from 14% to 11%. To our Martian, it might appear that America, not Germany, is the deadbeat economy. Corporate profits have also been rising faster in Germany than in the United States. German equities have outperformed those on Wall Street over the past couple of years, yet p/e ratios suggest that Deutschland Inc looks like an excellent “buy”.

The paradox of thrift

But if German business is in such great shape, why is the country's economy not growing more strongly. The blame lies with weak consumer spending and business investment, largely as a consequence of the successful efforts of German firms to become fitter. Real wages have been squeezed and workers, fearful of losing their jobs and of looming cuts in welfare benefits, are saving more. Higher profits will eventually encourage new investment and jobs, but the short-term cost is weaker growth. One thing that the government could do to speed up this process is to remove barriers to job creation, especially in services, which are choked by a tangle of red tape.

http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3667837

Just for balance ;)

Germans are very industrious peoples, so i think they can pull themselves out of a deprssion without serious changes.

I wonder what effect their welfare/tax policies have had in terms of this rising unemployment.

You take $ away from businesses, they have to cut spending somewhere...

and

there are those who will not work if you give them enough support... too much welfare can really backfire.

Germany has hit it's highest unemployment rate since the 1930's. In your opinion, how can Germany fix this problem?
Considering the economic chaos that ensued with the re-unification of Germany and the great costs associated with that, this is not really that bad?

Perhaps you liked it better with the Berlin Wall up?

From an article:

So the unification process after 1990 developed into what I would call one of the most impressive demonstrations of national solidarity that I know of."


Moreover, adjustments for seasonal changes give an overall unemployment level of 4.875 million people or 11.7% - admittedly up 0.3 percentage points from the previous month.
That number is not too far off what the TRUE US unemployment number was about a year ago.

That number is not too far off what the TRUE US unemployment number was about a year ago.

Where oh great Canadian, can I get the "TRUE" US unemployment number?

I suggest they start a war again, to reduce its population.

Where oh great Canadian, can I get the "TRUE" US unemployment number?
http://www.stabu.de/basis/e/erwerb/erwerbtab1.htm

Participation rate in Germany: ~70%.

Participation rate in USA: ~66%

Where oh great Canadian, can I get the "TRUE" US unemployment number?


i dunno 11% unemployment in the USA??? You would have mass riots...

seems to be BS to me.

Where oh great Canadian, can I get the "TRUE" US unemployment number?
Actually the TRUE number is higher than the German rate:

http://www.arikiart.com/blogit/2004/10/us-unemployment-what-is-true-figure.htm

Today, the real U.S. unemployment rate, after you add back all discouraged workers, is nearly 12.5%!

And that is now and not a year ago when it was probably worse.

The US economy and politics are pretty much based on bullshit, you forget. >_>'

Actually the TRUE number is higher than the German rate:

http://www.arikiart.com/blogit/2004/10/us-unemployment-what-is-true-figure.htm

Today, the real U.S. unemployment rate, after you add back all discouraged workers, is nearly 12.5%!

And that is now and not a year ago when it was probably worse.

sounds a little fishy, do the numbers of "discouraged workers" come close to matching the amount of people on welfare in the states?

sounds a little fishy, do the numbers of "discouraged workers" come close to matching the amount of people on welfare in the states?
Pardon?

Actually the TRUE number is higher than the German rate:

http://www.arikiart.com/blogit/2004/10/us-unemployment-what-is-true-figure.htm

Today, the real U.S. unemployment rate, after you add back all discouraged workers, is nearly 12.5%!

And that is now and not a year ago when it was probably worse.

Hey smart guy, this has been disproven. Remember the last election here?

Discouraged workers? Nice democratic talking point. It is not true. You seriously think that over 7% of our workforce just gave up looking for a job? What do they do now, sleep in a rusty van down by the river?

Hey smart guy, this has been disproven. Remember the last election here?

Discouraged workers? Nice democratic talking point. It is not true. You seriously think that over 7% of our workforce just gave up looking for a job? What do they do now, sleep in a rusty van down by the river?
See the participation rates...those are the discouraged workers.

Maybe they like the river...

sounds a little fishy, do the numbers of "discouraged workers" come close to matching the amount of people on welfare in the states?
Hey, I don't live in the US. Look at your country and find your own truths. I am just trying to point out that all that you see, and that all that you hear is not necessarily true. Bean counters love fudging numbers?

Pardon?


well if they stopped looking for a job, wouldnt they get welfare? lol

http://www.stabu.de/basis/e/erwerb/erwerbtab1.htm

Participation rate in Germany: ~70%.

Participation rate in USA: ~66%

What does that link have to do with US unemployment? The link just opened up to the German graph?

Hey, I don't live in the US. Look at your country and find your own truths. I am just trying to point out that all that you see, and that all that you hear is not necessarily true. Bean counters love fudging numbers?


I live in alberta dude, your numbers are BS

See the participation rates...those are the discouraged workers.

What the devil are you talking about?

Hey smart guy, this has been disproven. Remember the last election here?

Discouraged workers? Nice democratic talking point. It is not true. You seriously think that over 7% of our workforce just gave up looking for a job? What do they do now, sleep in a rusty van down by the river?
Will you settle for US and German poverty rates to give you some perspective?

Germany (http://hdr.undp.org/statistics/data/cty/cty_f_DEU.html):

Human poverty index (HPI-2) Rank 6
Human poverty index (HPI-2) Value (%) 10.3

USA (http://hdr.undp.org/statistics/data/cty/cty_f_USA.html):

Human poverty index (HPI-2) Rank 17
Human poverty index (HPI-2) Value (%) 15.8

The US ranks 17th out of the 17 industrialized OECD countries.

I live in alberta dude, your numbers are BS
Why do you say that? Can you refute the research?

What does that link have to do with US unemployment? The link just opened up to the German graph?
That's german. I assume you know how to get to the BLS's site and pull up those graphs. But judging by this post...
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm

Jan participation rate: 65.8% (higher is better)

Hey smart guy, this has been disproven. Remember the last election here?

Discouraged workers? Nice democratic talking point. It is not true. You seriously think that over 7% of our workforce just gave up looking for a job? What do they do now, sleep in a rusty van down by the river?
How do you figure that it is a democratic talking point? I am a liberal living in Canada. If you want to live in denial of the truth then that is your choice?

How the US measures unemployment (http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm).

How do you figure that it is a democratic talking point? I am a liberal living in Canada. If you want to live in denial of the truth then that is your choice?

How the US measures unemployment (http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm).


It was a democratic talking point in the last election. It is not true that our unemployment is higher then in Germany.

There are no true discouraged workers in the US. Just like the "misery index" it is a myth. If you want work, it is out there. Sure you may have a degree and all, but people are always needed for manual labor, and other tough jobs. If there wasn't alot of work here, why do the Mexicans flood across our borders?

If the German unemployment wasn't so bad, why would the BBC have done an article on it?

That's german. I assume you know how to get to the BLS's site and pull up those graphs. But judging by this post...
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm

Jan participation rate: 65.8% (higher is better)

Sorry, but I don't pull charts out of my ass like you do. Infact I am not a high school techno geek. I have a life and can't be bothered with such things.

Much of the economic problems of Germany and Europe as a whole is a result of a considerably smaller workforce than the United States. The U.S. has benefited from the large workforce known as the Baby Boom Generation. With the Baby Boomers retireing in the next couple of decades, Germany is what America will look like relativly soon.

It was a democratic talking point in the last election. It is not true that our unemployment is higher then in Germany.

There are no true discouraged workers in the US. Just like the "misery index" it is a myth. If you want work, it is out there. Sure you may have a degree and all, but people are always needed for manual labor, and other tough jobs. If there wasn't alot of work here, why do the Mexicans flood across our borders?

If the German unemployment wasn't so bad, why would the BBC have done an article on it?
I take it that you started this post to sock it to Germany, and in the process, you have discovered some sad truths about your own country?

The BLS site specifically talks about "discouraged" workers, and even states that if a person works a minimum of 1 hour in the week the survey is taken, those people are considered as employed.

Take it for what you will? Denial in light of the facts does not change the facts?

Hey smart guy, this has been disproven. Remember the last election here?

Discouraged workers? Nice democratic talking point. It is not true. You seriously think that over 7% of our workforce just gave up looking for a job? What do they do now, sleep in a rusty van down by the river?

Actually CanuckHeaven is right. The US doesn't include people who have given up looking for work, nor do they include people who have part time or temp work. If you work one day a week you're counted as being employed in the US. Hate to burst the bubble, but he's 100% correct.

Sorry, but I don't pull charts out of my ass like you do. Infact I am not a high school techno geek. I have a life and can't be bothered with such things.
O.o

Well, there you are. Germany has more people as a percentage of their population working then the US does. Ergo, it stands to reason that the US has a higher real unemployment rate then Germany does.

Actually CanuckHeaven is right. The US doesn't include people who have given up looking for work, nor do they include people who have part time or temp work. If you work one day a week you're counted as being employed in the US. Hate to burst the bubble, but he's 100% correct.
The discouraged workers are the ones living in poverty, which probably explains why the US ranks 17th out of 17 industrialized countries in the OECD.

Sorry, but I don't pull charts out of my ass like you do. Infact I am not a high school techno geek. I have a life and can't be bothered with such things.
Then why on earth did you start this thread?

Then why on earth did you start this thread?

To stick it to Germany, duh. :rolleyes:

To stick it to Germany, duh. :rolleyes:
But he didn't eh? :eek:

I didn't say he succeeded, just that it was obviously intended that way. :D

Well for one thing we could stop letting people into the country.
Stuid E.U.!

Needs more beer hall putsch.
http://home.arcor.de/daywalker2001/hpt/AuschwitzFebruar/Power-Point%20Tim%20und%20Jan/Hitler-Putsch%201923.jpg

Needs more beer hall putsch.
http://home.arcor.de/daywalker2001/hpt/AuschwitzFebruar/Power-Point%20Tim%20und%20Jan/Hitler-Putsch%201923.jpg

More than 60 years and people still use that. It's so stupid, grow up and face facts!

What the hell are you talking about. :confused:

Germany should increase military spending to prime the economic pump, then invade Poland to seize their land and natural resources. That should get the economy going.

No, the gorvernment should finally restructurize the effin' tax system. At the moment not even the professionals can really look through the rules.

And in the end it only leads to the fact that the average Joe and the small and medium sized businesses have to pay most taxes, while the big companies use every little loophole, and pay less then in most states in Europe. Yet they still complain about the high tax rates - which are lower then what the US are charging...

http://www.zeit.de/2005/08/Steuern

Fran

The discouraged workers are the ones living in poverty, which probably explains why the US ranks 17th out of 17 industrialized countries in the OECD.


I still dont get why the numbers of "discouraged workers" doesnt match the amount of people on welfare.

I mean just because germany has a higher percantage of working people doesnt really mean that much. The USA could have higher rates of stay at home parents, retirees etc etc etc. People chosing not to work.

A better way to look at it is, what is the number or percentage of people on welfare or employment insureance in the states? Is it much much higher than germany? If it is then perhaps the states does have a understated unemployment rate, if not then well the "discouraged worker" stat is complete BS.

I took off eight months last year because I hadn't had a vacation in 12 years.

I wasn't looking for a job during that time, nor was I on unemployment.

When I did go to look for a job, it took three days to find a job, and that counts the time to interview.

"discouraged workers"?

(from about 2 pages ago)

sounds to me like "lazy motherfuckers with the nerve to expect hard-working Americans --who may not always like their job but keep working nonetheless because they believe in personal responsibility-- to pay for their laziness"

some of them, at least.

those who can't work, we should support. that is always the caveat. but if you can work but decide to sit on your ass, i believe the best way to motivate such people is to take away their food stamps. Make them realize that if they don't get up and get a job, they will starve. I figure that will turn most of them into productive, self-sufficient members of society.

I suggest they start a war again,...

That's what the U.S. did. Hell, think of it. Most of the troops in Afganistan and Iraq are Reservists and Guardsmen. Their jobs were taken over by temps or they were replaced by their employers. The wars created jobs, putting to work, people who weren't working before.

Lets see... Germany could attack Iran on the pretext it wants to stop the building of nuclear facilities and send all the troops they have there...;D Better yet they can go into Lebanon and settle their differences, then they can re-establish the place as the "Paris of the Mid-East" (said with thick sarcasm)

By the way, one of the things that is rarely mentioned in the U.S. un-employment figures are those who's benefits have run out. Generally these people have yet to find a job. They are no longer counted in the figures and as a result the numbers appear better than they really are. Or they are working but having to work two part time jobs to make ends meet.

Considering the number of reservists and National Guard called up, that's a fairly small number - people who already were employed and for whom the employer is required by law to keep the job. You're legally not allowed to replace a reservists or National Guard person.

Also, most reservists and NG are not there for the whole 2 years of this current action - it's six months here, a year there, but not the whole stretch.

Considering the number of reservists and National Guard called up, that's a fairly small number - people who already were employed and for whom the employer is required by law to keep the job. You're legally not allowed to replace a reservists or National Guard person.

Also, most reservists and NG are not there for the whole 2 years of this current action - it's six months here, a year there, but not the whole stretch.

Oh certainly, they would get their jobs back should they come back. (death and maiming put a big crimp in your job still being there for you.)

My point was that despite the small numbers there is a scewed un-employment percentage in the U.S.

6mos. is to long for some. You also don't get your job back if the economy has slumped to the point where your employer has shut its doors. Employers also don't want to see their best employees called up every other year either.(unsure of actual rotation.)

By the way my bro in law is a guardsman and he's been in Afganistan for a year so far and no word on when his unit's heading back.

The problem is that they stop counting people who give up searching for a job.

The question is, why did they give up searching? Did they actually find one? Do they not care?

I, for example, up and quit a job, and didn't work or look for a job for eight months. I didn't file for unemployment. So I wouldn't show up in the statistics, would I?

When I went to get a job, it took me all of three days. Posted the resume - got a phone call in an hour, and spent a couple of days interviewing.

I still dont get why the numbers of "discouraged workers" doesnt match the amount of people on welfare.

I mean just because germany has a higher percantage of working people doesnt really mean that much. The USA could have higher rates of stay at home parents, retirees etc etc etc. People chosing not to work.

A better way to look at it is, what is the number or percentage of people on welfare or employment insureance in the states? Is it much much higher than germany? If it is then perhaps the states does have a understated unemployment rate, if not then well the "discouraged worker" stat is complete BS.
Maybe this will help you to understand the "true unemployment rate (http://www.depression2.tv/nwo/archives/000023.html)" in the US?

Or perhaps the word "underutilization (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t12.htm)" might work for you?

Do some personal research before you call other posts BS?

that's what you get as a nation when you have leftie socialists in power and have let in way too many foreigners and bogus asylumseekers (90% of asymlym seekers are liars who come for the money).

Throw them out and presto, your unemployment % drops! :)

Apart from no more Jews and Women in the workforce?