Europe's jobs crisis comes into sharper relief

Europe's jobs crisis comes into sharper relief Reuters – 1 hr 10 mins ago. LONDON (Reuters) - Europe's policymakers are starting to recognise chronic unemployment as a crisis in its own right, rather than something that will resolve itself when the economy improves. Compared with the United States, where the labour market is a key determinant of economic policy, European authorities have been more passive in their approach to jobs for many years. But the depth of the jobless epidemic, especially in euro zone countries like Spain and Italy, means their rhetoric is at least changing. Friday's spring economic forecast from the European Commission was a case in point. Invoking European Central Bank President Mario Draghi's pledge to protect the euro, the European Union's Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said the EU would do "whatever it takes" to overcome the jobless crisis. In previous forecasts, Rehn mentioned reducing unemployment mainly as something that would only come further down the line, after the completion of painful reforms. Jobs data from across the Atlantic, also released on Friday, contrasted starkly. The United States added 165,000 non-farm jobs in April, while the unemployment rate there fell to 7.6 percent, its lowest since December 2008. Business surveys on Monday will reveal more about the pace of job losses in the euro zone, where the jobless rate hit a new record 12.1 percent in March, meaning more than 19 million euro zone citizens are out of work. "At some point they're going to have to change tack, and maybe 12.1 percent unemployment is the time," said David Blanchflower, economics professor at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, and formerly a Bank of England policymaker. He noted ECB President Draghi did not mention the labour market at all in his economic analysis of the euro area last week, after cutting interest rates to a new record low of 0.5 percent. "If you see the latest minutes from the (U.S. Federal Reserve), they really are targeting unemployment, as they should be. They really do take it seriously," he said. CONTINUE READING NO QUICK FIX