From the final day of 2012
One of the things I love about the black market in labor is that it makes things better, despite whining from state-educated kids who want a free lunch.
In Greece, there is 56% unemployment for young adults. Why? Because the unions have closed the job market to them. So has the government.
They expected an easy life of job protection and high wages if they just got liberal arts college degrees from state universities. Ha, ha; the joke’s on them.
So, they have to work at jobs that pay them exactly what they are worth, which isn’t much. They bitch. They whine. But they buckle down. They place their tails tightly between their legs and do what they are told.
It’s about time.
With Greece sinking deeper into recession and no other jobs to be found, she meekly agreed last year to monthly pay of 160 euros in cash and 700 euros on the books – allowing her struggling firm to pay lower social security contributions.At 26, Reggina had joined the ranks of a growing number of young Greeks resorting to informal work to get by during an economic crisis that has left Greece with a youth unemployment rate of 56 percent – the highest in the euro zone.
“It’s not just psychological war, it’s abuse,” said Reggina, who like others declined to give her full name because of the illegal nature of her work.
“I get fewer social security vouchers and I can’t get a loan because my salary on paper is so low. But they tell us if we talk about this, we’ll lose our jobs.”
She’s all upset. The business world doesn’t owe her and her peers a living after all.
My advice: “Suck it up, sweetie. You are at the tail end of a civilization-wide Ponzi scheme. You now get to pay for those who got in earlier. That’s life in Keynes City.”
All over the West, this story will be repeated. It’s hitting early in Club Med, because the welfare state mentality is entrenched and work habits are mostly “Made in the Mediterranean.”
The grasshoppers fiddled all summer. Now winter has arrived.
Continue reading on reuters.com.
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Published on December 31, 2012. The original is here.
Youth unemployment is down from 56%. It is now around 36%. It has been moving up for a year. This is seven years after the high-water mark of 58%. This generation will never recover. The next recession will produce sharply rising unemployment within the small percentage of this age group -- no longer young -- that did find jobs after 2012.
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