You Go to the Penalty Box. You Feel Shame

"Long term unemployment" is defined as when you've been unemployed for a year or longer. And while people may cite different variables for it, I surmise that if the most advanced student of econometrics at the U of Chicago were to do a thorough analysis of it, it would boil down to two things;

1. How generous/stingy a country's unemployment benefits are.
2. How lazy/hard working its people and culture are.

And so The Economist has come out with the most recent long term unemployment figures.


Sadly it does not include South Korea and Mexico where the shame of being unemployed is enough to make people lie about it and the unemployment benefits are nil (and it showed on the last chart where less than 2% of both countries' unemployed were long term).

Now I understand the occasional person that has a spat of bad luck. I can even understand entire swathes of laborers unemployed for a year or more if their industry is rendered obsolete or is going through a dramatic change, but to be in Germany or Italy where over half your unemployed people have been so for a year or more is disgraceful.

Alas, maybe the European Union doesn't need labor reforms to get the economy going as much as going into the penalty box and feeling a little noble South Korean shame.