Labour-Market Flexibility and Economic Expansion

The major economies of Western Europe have been facing almost chronic unemployment, often hovering around double digits, for nearly two decades now. This is especially true of Germany, which acted as the economic powerhouse in the consolidation of the European Union. It is all the more paradoxical that advanced market democracies can live with high unemployment placing relatively little emphasis on this problem, except perhaps at times of elections. A deep change in the climate of opinion has occurred in striking contrast to the post-Second World War years, when the pursuit of full employment was the agreed policy objective of almost all shades of political opinion. History is seldom mono-causal; several causal factors and processes usually coincide at a particular juncture of time to bring about such a dramatic change in the climate of opinion.