from the article:
But the issue for Mr. Sarkozy is job creation. Unemployment in France is at a 12-year high and rising. Germany’s unemployment rate, at 7.4 percent, is at its lowest point since reunification in 1991.
and
French salaries have increased in real terms while German salaries have
fallen, making French workers more expensive and thus less productive
and competitive. French social protections for the unemployed are also
much more lavish, especially after the Germans pushed through the
so-called Hartz reforms, which largely limited unemployment benefits to
12 months. In France, the duration is 23 months for those under 50 and
three years for those over 50, many of whom never work again.
In part to pay for those benefits, the cost to business of an hour’s
labor is 11 percent higher in France. But there is less job security in
Germany, and more Germans do part-time work. The Germans do not have a
centrally fixed minimum wage, as the French do.
The practical results of these trends are visible in these border towns,
where the shape of industry — largely small- to medium-size
metal-working companies or factories — is similar. For example, there
are 10 times as many job offers a month on the German side as on the
French one, said Norbert Mattusch, who works on cross-border cooperation
for the German Federal Employment Agency in Freiburg.
Source: Steven Erlanger, "French-German Border Shapes More Than Territory," The New York Times, March 3, 2012
No comments:
Post a Comment