NY Times: Many College Graduates in Europe Are Unemployed

While there are admirable aspects of Germany’s society, they hopped on the neoliberal bandwagon years ago, and it has had horrible consequences:

“With no national minimum wage and a fifth of workers in insecure mini-jobs, critics say German prosperity is being built on exploitation of the downtrodden”

“Sometimes referred to as McJobs, mini-jobs are a form of marginal employment that allows workers to earn up to €450 a month tax-free. Introduced in 2003 by the then Social Democratic chancellor Gerhard Schröder as part of a wide-ranging labour market reform when Germany’s economic doldrums earned it the title “sick man of Europe”, they keep down labour costs and offer greater flexibility to employers.”

This happened around the same time German’s insurance costs began rising.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/30/low-paid-germans-mini-jobs

&

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/08/us-germany-jobs-idUSTRE8170P120120208

Labor market reforms. Education reforms. “Entitlement” reforms. They all lead back to corporations and the politicians they buy using neoliberal policies to privatize and squeeze labor for increased profits. Our struggle is their struggle. It’s the same all over the world. We need to make these connections in writing and action.

Diane Ravitch's blog

This is a sad story, and there is a warning here for us.

College graduates in Europe are having a hard time finding jobs.

The story in the New York Times begins like this:

“Alba Méndez, a 24-year-old with a master’s degree in sociology, sprang out of bed nervously one recent morning, carefully put on makeup and styled her hair. Her thin hands trembled as she clutched her résumé on her way out of the tiny room where a friend allows her to stay rent free.

Graphic

She had an interview that day for a job at a supermarket. It was nothing like the kind of professional career she thought she would have after finishing her education. But it was a rare flicker of opportunity after a series of temporary positions, applications that went nowhere and employers who increasingly demanded that young people work long, unpaid stretches just to be…

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