Thread: Peripheral Europe's New Normal: 50 Applicants For One Minimum Wage Job

Peripheral Europe's New Normal: 50 Applicants For One Minimum Wage Job

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 12/13/2013 21:31 -0500

While it is arguable whether two instances of the same event are sufficient to indicate a pattern, when it comes to Europe under the New (feudal) Normal we are willing to make a generalizing extrapolation. Recall a week ago when we reported that hours after unleashing a campaign to hire 400 employees for its brand new megastore in the Mediterranean city Valencia, Ikea's servers in Spain promptly crashed after the company got at least 20,000 applicants (and possibly many more that would have registered had the system not experienced its Obamacare moment). The punchline here, of course, is not the dilapidated server infrastructure of Ikea - in a world in which nobody spends any growth CapEx any more that is to be expected - but that there were 20,000 applicants for what were effectively 400 minimum wage jobs, or, said otherwise: 50 candidates for each job. Hardly a ringing endorsement of the mythical recovery that Spain's premier Rajoy fabulates in people's minds on a daily basis. Needless to say, the 2% "success rate" of applicants means it is three times harder to get a minimum wage job in this European country than to get into Harvard. Today, we find the same 2% number in action once again, as if by magic, only this time relating to minimum wage job applicants in that other European basket case - Greece.

From Keep Talking Greece

More than 18,000 candidates for 390 job vacancies at €580 gross

More than 18,000 candidates sent their CVs to OTE after Greece’s biggest Telecommunication Company announced 390 job vacancies for salespersons. What if the salary is the minimum wage of just 580 euro gross per month. i.e. some 480 euro net. With more than 1,3 million people without job, unemployment rate at 27.4% and businesses closing down one after the other, people have not much chances and options.

At the same time, Greek media report that OTE is estimated to send to “voluntary retirement” more than 2,000 employees, personnel from the “old guard” that was hired on permanent status.

390/18,000 = 2.2%, or rounded down, the same success rate as in Spain.

Which brings us to what is emerging as Europe's magic number, namely, 1 in 50, or what an unemployed person's chances are of getting a minimum wage job. Aka, welcome to the reekovery.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-1...nimum-wage-job

1. Its not only coming here... its been here

2. You better stop Amnesty or YOU and your children will be competing for those same FEW Minimum Wage Jobs.

3. Pull off the Blinders and take a look around and come to your own conclusion

Unemployed told to leave Ireland in desperate move to slash welfare costs



in ireland, get a job or leave / GETTY IMAGES

Maria Tadeo
Friday 13 December 2013

Ireland is asking its citizens to leave the country if they can't find a job in a desperate bid to slash welfare costs.

The Irish government has sent letters to approximately 6,000 unemployed people suggesting they should take jobs in other European countries in an effort to reduce unemployment benefits, the Financial Times has reported.

Some of the jobs were poorly paid but came with a "Mediterranean" climate.An unemployed electrician was encouraged to move to Coventry, while another jobseeker was offered work as a bus driver in Malta.

Dublin defended the move insisting that the positions are voluntary and no one is being forced to leave the country.

Ireland is close to becoming the first euro zone nation to make a successful exit from its international bailout programme after the country's finances collapsed in the 2008 financial crisis.

Unemployment has eased in recent months, falling to its lowest level in four years in November at 12.5 per cent, but youth unemployment remains a problem.

Overall, one in four Irish under 25 is still unemployed.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/bu...s-9002720.html

Other countries can try to reserve jobs for their own people, but we can't. Ask Demos or Repubs, they'll all say No we can't.
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