2 maps regarding wealth and unemployment in the EU

I thoguth you might find the maps itneresting. soem countries like Germany and Italy are very unbalanced, in the case of Germany it's due to the unification that apparently only afected borders, not the situation of the common people in eastern germany...

Wealth in Europe

red = fewer than 50 percent
green = 125 and beyond

the gross domestic product GDP (i think, i've unfortunately forgotten what BIP means in English) per capita in 2001.

 

unemployment in Europe

light red = fewer than 4,75 percent
dark red = 13,45 and beyond

unemployment rate in 2002.

Well, at least unemployment has gotten less in Bulgaria ever since more companies decided to open offices there.  If you are a programmer fresh out of college, you automatically get a job...

Its all seasonal labour down there, tourism and fruit picking.

yes, my state is fortunately the richest of the whole country

The fact that Half of Ireland lives in Dublin probably helped too, statistics wise.
The last village in wales to be connected to electricity was about 2-3 years ago, so we're officaly a developed country

Its doubtfull that they'd get more power than they have now.

For the so-called Celtic Tiger, its a matter of on the one hand, having lagged behind most of Western Europe somewhat in the past.
Before the boom began in the late 1980s, it had some of the lowest labour costs in Western Europe, which attracted many would be investors, plus the low coperate tax was a help too, as did subsidies.
A young and well educated workforce that spoke English was also a huge boost for America firms looking for somewhere in Europe to set up operations.
Its mostly the last 2 decades.

In short, there have been many criticism about the way this boom peroid has been managed, and about its side effects.
Yes, the wealth gap has increased (its inevitable what when a country gets rich quick, many are left behind), crime has increased, roads are overcrowded as new wealth brought more cars, but no more roads, crucial services have been neglected, and so on.

Its true that Ireland's educated workforce played an important role (according to analysts anyways, would make sense as Irelands economic boom was focused in a large part on the service sector, and high-tech industry).
As for the status of education there, i don't know.

But yes, the empthasis on education is often overlooked, especialy with the likes of the World Bank/IMF, who often advise countries to cut back on education spending in order to help save money to pay off debts.

Originally posted by Mr Bobo Why is unemployment and poverty in Poland that bad? i knew it was a problem but didnt know it was to that kind of scale.

Well, the answer is quite simple- 50 years of communism. For all that time there was no unemployment (or rather was hidden unemployment, people had jobs even if their work didnt bring any profits to their companies). In 1989 the system has changed from communism (or socialism) to capitalism and in short time half of the industries were closed, all their worker's lost jobs. Today in Poland is the highest unemployment rate in the whole EU, right now about 17%. There are some areas where unemployment is low (about 5-8%) but there are also such where it is about 30%. Especially in such cities like Lodz where during communism were only industries which all have buncrupted. While the young and educated people usually dont have much problems to find good jobs, noone has any idea what to do with those in age 40-50 who spent most of their lifes in the communist state owned companies. Their skills are belowe the requirements of the employers. I remember that when i was looking for secretary i recived about 200 offers but found only 10% of them fullfilling my requirements. From them all only 1 was good for me because the other wanted to earn much more monay than i was ready to pay. Between those which i rejected were also ladies who worked as secretaries in the state owned companies in the past and all what they could do was making cofee. Affcourse for people who gives jobs such situation isint bad because we can lower our costs by paying less and we can demand them to work longer and harder.

Edited by Mosquito