ATHENS, Oct 2, 2011 (IPS) - Every working day a long queue of people forms outside the State Translation Service in Thission in downtown Athens from early in the morning. Most are youngsters processing documents they need to leave Greece for study or work. Many move on to queue later outside embassies for visas.These are signs on the street of the emigration wave sweeping Greece. As Greece sinks deeper into economic crisis, thousands are looking for a way out of the country.Unemployment has skyrocketed to an official 16 percent this month. Minister of Finance Evaggelos Venizelos has admitted publicly that the economy is retracting faster than feared, at a rate of 5.2 percent, and that this trend will continue into next year.A report published by the Labour Research Institute, belonging to the General Labour Union (GSEE) of private sector workers has predicted rapid deterioration. Officially more than 790,000 are currently out of work. The real numbers are higher because many are not counted due to logistical reasons.The young coming into the labour market are hit hardest, with unemployment of those between 15 and 29 years rising above 40 percent. This feeds the emigration wave....
 Read the rest at IPS, GREECE: Lost Generation Begins to Leave By Apostolis Fotiadis
1 comment:
This is part of the 'solution'.
You have to remember that there is freedom of movement throughout the European Union.
The theory being that people can move around Europe from the depressed to the undepressed bits.
But of course that didn't envisage a system that was fundamentally all depressed at the same time.
I suspect in this recession we're going to start to see EU countries 'encouraging' the unemployed to move to another member state.
There is already a row brewing in the UK about the cost of unemployment benefit to EU immigrants.
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