Greece needs 10 years to return to 2008 employment level, says expert
Climbing unemployment, disinvestment and a shrinking of the country?s technological stock are causing its productive base to subside, a labor expert said on Friday.
?The resources required to finance the economy will be huge and can?t be found,? Savvas Robolis, director of the General Confederation of Greek Labor?s Labor Institute, told Skai Radio. He cautioned that the planned budget savings of 11.5 billion over the next two years will push unemployment to 28-29 percent in 2013.
According to official data released on Thursday, the Greek jobless rate climbed to 23.1 percent in May, from 22.6 percent in April. ?We are 674,000 jobs short of the 2008 level,? which will take at least 10 years to regain, Robolis said.
The unemployment problem is partly due to the recession and is causing a shrinking of the technological stock of enterprises, he said.
Moreover, the staggering jobless rate among the 15-24 age group (54.9 percent) is a huge human waste as a young person?s knowledge is rendered useless if he or she is not employed within five years.
Robolis revealed that he found the troika anxious and concerned about the trajectory of the Greek economy during their recent meeting.
