The Netherlands: Quarter of IT firms in the Netherlands have staff shortages

One in four information technology firms in the Netherlands say their production has been down since April because they are short of staff, the national statistics office CBS said on Tuesday.

The IT sector has been most affected by the tight jobs market since the first quarter of 2015 when one out of every nine IT companies had staffing problems. Until then the mining sector (gas, oil) had the biggest need for employees.

There were 12,300 job vacancies in the IT sector in the first quarter of 2017, equating to 6.3% of the national total, the CBS said. The catering sector (hotels, restaurants, cafés) report an 11.3% shortage, industry 9.9% and construction 7.6%.


Read more: Quarter of IT firms in the Netherlands have staff shortages - DutchNews.nl

EU Migrant Crises: The economics behind Europe’s migrant crisis - by Mohamed A. El-Erian

Fleeing economic and social miseries of home countries

As our Eurostar train zipped from London through the Chunnel to Paris, I couldn't help thinking about the thousands of migrants languishing on both sides of the English Channel. Once again, national and regional political systems are struggling to cope with a mounting human tragedy whose spillover effects involve disruptions to commerce, and all this is stoking a political crisis.

The economics of the Channel migrant crisis are quite clear, being basically about supply, demand and regulatory failures. They also shed light on the potential solutions, though they will take time to materialize.

The supply of migrants to Europe is fueled by waves of people fleeing the economic and social misery of their home countries — and, in some case, political oppression, persecution and violence.

They do so in hopes of a better future for themselves and their children. The temptation for some to try and make it all the way to the U.K., often after a perilous sea crossing and a fraught trip through western Europe, is amplified by the attractiveness of an economy with low unemployment, comprehensive social services and a country where many already know the language. 

Although the supply of migrants has increased, the demand for migrant labour has gone the other way. Tougher laws have made it harder and more dangerous for employers to hire undocumented workers. And with a European unemployment rate of more than 10 per cent, the demand is further damped. 

This imbalance in supply and demand isn't one that can be sorted out by the markets' normal equilibrating mechanism. The market-clearing wage — that is, the price that would lower the migration incentive while facilitating the absorption of those still inclined to risk life and limb — is well below the minimum wage prevailing in Europe; and any meaningful reduction in the wage would involve significant and unacceptable social disruptions to local populations in Europe.

Read more: The economics behind Europe’s migrant crisis: MIGRANTS

The Netherlands: Finding a new job heads up list of Dutch New Year resolutions

Finding a new job is a new entrant in the top five Dutch New Year resolutions, according to research by financial services group ING. Losing weight remains top of the list with 13%, followed by less stress (9%) and doing more sport (7%). Finding a new job is in equal fourth place with taking more exercise – both on 5%.

However, despite the good intentions, just one in four people manage to keep their resolutions for an entire year. In addition, 22% of the 1,300 plus people polled by ING don’t make any New Year resolutions at all.

Almere-Digest

Finding a new job is a new entrant in the top five Dutch New Year resolutions, according to research by financial services group ING. Losing weight remains top of the list with 13%, followed by less stress (9%) and doing more sport (7%). Finding a new job is in equal fourth place with taking more exercise – both on 5%.

Read more at DutchNews.nl: Finding a new job enters Dutch New Year resolution list http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2014/12/finding-a-new-job-is-new-in-top-dutch-new-year-resolution-list.php/

Europe's job market has strengths the US doesn't - by Paul Wiseman and Christopher S. Rugaber

Compare unemployment rates, and America's job market looks much stronger than Europe's. The U.S. rate for August, being released Friday, is expected to be a near-normal 6.1 percent. In the 18 countries that use the euro currency, by contrast, it's a collective 11.5 percent.

Yet by some measures, Europe is doing better. It's been more successful in keeping people working, letting the disabled stay on the job and boosting the proportion of women in the workforce.

And Europeans in their prime working years — ages 25 to 54 — are more likely to be employed than Americans are.

Fewer than 77 percent of prime-age Americans have jobs, compared with 80 percent in Belgium, 81 percent in France and 82 percent in the Netherlands, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

If Americans 25 to 54 were as likely to be working as Germans the same age, 8.3 million more Americans would have jobs.

''Where we used to talk about the U.S. having a high-powered labor market in the late 1990s, Germany has that now,'' says Jacob Kirkegaard, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

It's true, of course, that the unemployed have a much harder time finding a job in, say, Spain or Greece than the United States. Spain's unemployment rate is nearly 25 percent. For people under 25, the rate tops 50 percent.

Though the eurozone's overall unemployment rate is 11.5 percent, individual countries include low-rate nations like Germany and Austria (4.9 percent) as well as some with much higher unemployment than the United States: Portugal (14 percent), Italy (12.6 percent), France (10.3 percent), Belgium (8.5 percent).

Yet Josh Bivens, research director at the liberal Economic Policy Institute, says America's relatively low ''headline unemployment rate is painting too rosy a picture of how the U.S. labor market is doing.''

The fall in the U.S. unemployment rate has been exaggerated by rising numbers of adults neither working nor looking for work. The government counts people as unemployed only if they're looking for a job. When many stop looking, the unemployment rate can fall even if few people are hired.

The share of Americans 16 to 64 either working or seeking work has fallen to 72.7 percent from 75.3 percent at the end of 2007, when the Great Recession began. In the 28 countries in the European Union, the figure has risen to 72.3 percent from 70.5 percent in late 2007. The United States and Europe calculate their employment rates in broadly similar ways.

No single reason explains why prime-age employment and workforce participation trends are weaker in the United States.

Read more: Europe's job market has strengths the US doesn't - Worcester Telegram & Gazette - telegram.com