The crisis facing the younger generation across the Eurozone worsened last month as youth unemployment hit a new record high of 24.4% with under-25s in Spain, Italy and Portugal finding it harder to get jobs. The grim news on on employment came as the Netherlands was stripped of its prized AAA credit rating despite the country's recent exit from a year-long recession. Ratings agency Standard & Poor's said on Friday that weakening growth prospects showed the country would struggle to improve its financial stability and generate new jobs. It said: "The downgrade reflects our opinion that the Netherlands' growth prospects are now weaker than we had previously anticipated, and the real GDP per capita trend growth rate is persistently lower than that of peers." It cited weakening consumer demand, high levels of personal debt and falling house prices for keeping consumer spending and tax receipts low in the next few years. One in four Dutch homebuyers is in negative equity as a result of falling property values. Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister, said S&P's downgrade to AA+ was disappointing when the economy had returned to growth. S&P's action leaves only three members of the eurozone with a top rating from all three agencies – Germany, Luxembourg and Finland. The Eurozone jobless data showed Spain's youth unemployment rate has now increased to 57.4%, only marginally below Greece's August high of 58% - which remains the highest rate of youth unemployment for any country in the eurozone's history. Italy's youth unemployment rate rose to 41.2%, from 40.5% the previous month. In Portugal, it rose to 36.5% from 36.2%. The startling figures from southern Europe contrast with rates in the north where Germany has a 7.8% youth unemployment rate and the Netherlands an 11.6% rate. Italy's credit rating is perilously close to entering junk status and Rome is lobbying hard in Brussels for more time to cut the country's annual deficit. The coalition government headed by Enrico Letta said on Friday it would call a fresh confidence vote in parliament, despite winning a vote earlier in the week, to confirm his government's majority after the withdrawal of Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party from the ruling coalition. Letta said the vote would be held after his centre-left Democratic party elects a new leader on 8 December, and would be based on a new agenda for 2014 which would be discussed with coalition partners. "The confidence vote will allow us to pass from defence into attack," said Letta, whose government is backed by the Democratic party, a centrist group Civic Choice and a centre-right group that broke away from Forza Italia. Considering the chaos in Italian politics and the credit rating downgrades affecting some of the EU's traditional paymasters, France and the Netherlands in particular, there are still many analysts who fear for the eurozone's growth prospects over the next decade. Youth unemployment also remains a scar that shows little sign of healing. While the adult unemployment rate fell across the eurozone from 12.2 to 12.1%, 3.6m under-25s are now unemployed, an increase of 15,000 on the previous month. |
据英国《卫报》报道,欧元区的青年人失业率在10月达到24.4%,创下历史新高。年轻一代面临的就业危机逾发恶化,特别是西班牙、意大利和葡萄牙的青年(25岁以下)找工作格外困难。 这则关于就业问题残酷消息传出之时,荷兰刚刚从长达一年的经济萧条中有所恢复,却未能保住“AAA”的信用评级。
标准普尔说道:“荷兰信用等级下调反映了我们的观点,即荷兰的经济增长幅度低于我们之前的预期,而人均GDP的趋势增长率也一直低于其他国家。”
荷兰的财政大臣杰罗恩•迪塞布洛姆表示,荷兰的经济刚刚开始复苏,而“标准普尔”却将荷兰降级为“AA+”,这无疑令人失望。 标准普尔的这个动作让欧元区只有三个国家仍拥有标普最高的AAA评级,分别是德国、卢森堡和芬兰。 欧元区失业数据显示,西班牙的青年失业率增长最快,现已达到57.4%,仅比希腊在8月创下的最高纪录58%低0.6个百分点。意大利的青年失业率由10月的40.5%增长至41.2%,葡萄牙则由36.2% 增长至 36.5%。
莱塔称,投票将在12月8日在他所在的中左翼民主党选出一位新党首之后进行。投票将会依照与其他联合政府成员商定的2014年日程规划来进行。 莱塔说,“信任投票将使我们的处境转守为攻。”莱塔政府的主要支持者是民主党、中间派联盟Civic Choice,以及一个从意大利力量党分离出来的中右翼组织。
(译者 吲哚乙酸 编辑 丹妮) |