Mario Draghi: Unemployment in the euro area
Speech by Mr Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank, at the Federal Reserve
Bank of Kansas City Economic Symposium, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, 22 August 2014.
* * *
Summary
Everyone in society is affected by high unemployment. For central banks it is at the heart of
the macro dynamics that determine inflation, and even when there are no risks to price
stability it increases pressure on us to act. The key issue, however, is how much we can
really sustainably affect unemployment, which depends on whether the drivers are
predominantly cyclical or structural.
In the euro area, unemployment has been caused by a large and particularly sustained
negative shock to GDP: first through the Great Recession, which affected all advanced
economies, and second, through sovereign debt crisis, where job losses were concentrated
in countries affected by financial stress. The sovereign debt crisis operated in part by
disabling the tools of macroeconomic stabilisation, as fiscal policy had to switch towards
convincing investors of debt sustainability, and monetary policy transmission became
disrupted.
Cyclical factors have therefore played an important role in the rise in unemployment, and the
weak economic situation in the euro area suggests they continue to do so. At the same time,
there is evidence that a significant share of unemployment is also structural. This is
suggested by patterns of long-term unemployment and skill mismatches.
Making firm conclusions about the degree of structural unemployment in the euro area,
however, is complicated by uncertainty over estimation methods. There is also considerable
heterogeneity across countries in terms of initial conditions, and in the way that demand
shocks interact with labour market institutions.
In these circumstances, the only conclusion that policymakers can safely draw is that we
need action on both sides of the economy: aggregate demand policies have to be
accompanied by national structural policies.
Demand side policies are not only justified by the significant cyclical component in
unemployment. They are also relevant because, given prevailing uncertainty, the risks of
"doing too little" - i.e. that cyclical unemployment becomes structural - outweigh those of
"doing too much" - that is, excessive upward wage and price pressures.
At the same time, aggregate demand policies will ultimately not be effective without action on
the supply side. Advanced economies are operating in a set of initial conditions which include
low inflation, low interest rates and a large debt overhang. In this context, structural policies
are needed to engineer higher potential growth and allow both fiscal and monetary policy
regain traction over the economic cycle.
On the demand side, monetary policy can and should play a central role. The package of
measures announced by the ECB in June should provide the intended boost to demand, and
we stand ready to adjust our policy stance further. Acknowledging the downward path of
inflation, the Governing Council would use also unconventional instruments to safeguard the
firm anchoring of inflation expectations over the medium- to long-term.
On the demand side, monetary policy can and should play a central role. The package of
measures announced by the ECB in June should provide the intended boost to demand, and
we stand ready to adjust our policy stance further. Acknowledging the downward path of
inflation, the Governing Council would use also unconventional instruments to safeguard the
firm anchoring of inflation expectations over the medium- to long-term.
It would nonetheless be helpful for the overall stance of policy if fiscal policy could play a
greater role alongside monetary policy. The euro area has suffered from fiscal policy being
less effective and available, especially compared with other advanced economies, reflecting
the fact that the central bank in those countries could act and has acted as a backstop for
government funding. While respecting our specific initial conditions and legal constraints,
there are four key elements.
First, the existing flexibility within the rules could be used to better address the weak
recovery and to make room for the cost of needed structural reforms. Second, there is
leeway to achieve a more growth-friendly composition of fiscal policies, for instance by
lowering the tax burden in a budget-neutral way. Third, stronger coordination among the
different national fiscal stances should in principle facilitate a more growth-friendly aggregate
fiscal stance for the euro area. Fourth, complementary action at the EU level would also
seem to be necessary to ensure both an appropriate aggregate position and a large public
investment programme.
No amount of fiscal or monetary accommodation, however, can replace necessary structural
reforms. Structural unemployment was already very high in the euro area before the crisis
and the national structural reforms to tackle this problem can no longer be delayed.
Two types of labour market measures are a priority: first, measures that help workers
redeploy quickly to new job opportunities and thus lower unemployment duration; and
second, those that raise the skill intensity of the work force, which is also very important for
potential growth due to demographic prospects.
In short, the way back to higher employment is a policy mix that combines monetary, fiscal
and structural measures, which requires a coherent strategy at the union and national levels.
This will allow each member of our union to achieve a sustainably high level of employment.
The stakes for our monetary union are high. Without permanent cross-country transfers, a
high level of employment in each country is essential for the long-term cohesion of the euro
area. Given the very high costs if the cohesion of the union is threatened, all countries should
have an interest in achieving this.
***
No one in society remains untouched by a situation of high unemployment. For the
unemployed themselves, it is often a tragedy which has lasting effects on their lifetime
income. Fo r those in work, it raises job insecurity and undermines social cohesion. For
governments, it weighs on public finances and harms election prospects. And unemployment
is at the heart of the macro dynamics that shape short- and medium-term inflation, meaning it
also affects central banks. Indeed, even when there are no risks to price stability, but
unemployment is high and social cohesion at threat, pressure on the central bank to respond
invariably increases.
1. The causes of unemployment in the euro area
The key issue, however, is how much we can really sustainably affect unemployment, which
in turn is a question - as has been much discussed at this conference - of whether the
drivers are predominantly cyclical or structural. As we are an 18 country monetary union this
is necessarily a complex question in the euro area, but let me nonetheless give a brief
overview of how the ECB currently assesses the situation.
Figure 1
Change in the unemployment rate since 2008 - the euro area and the US
The long recession in the euro area
The first point to make is that the euro area has suffered a large and particularly sustained
negative shock to GDP, with serious consequences for employment. This is visible in
Figure 1, which shows the evolution of unemployment in the euro area and the US since
2008. Whereas the US experienced a sharp and immediate rise in unemployment in the
aftermath of the Great Recession, the euro area has endured two rises in unemployment
associated with two sequential recessions.
From the start of 2008 to early 2011 the picture in both regions is similar: unemployment
rates increase steeply, level off and then begin to gradually fall. This reflects the common
sources of the shock: the synchronisation of the financial cycle across advanced economies,
the contraction in global trade following the Lehman failure, coupled with a strong correction
of asset prices - notably houses - in certain jurisdictions.
From 2011 onwards, however, developments in the two regions diverge. Unemployment in
the US continues to fall at more or less the same rate.1 In the euro area, on the other hand, it
begins a second rise that does not peak until April 2013. This divergence reflects a second,
euro area-specific shock emanating from the sovereign debt crisis, which resulted in a six
quarter recession for the euro area economy. Unlike the post-Lehman shock, however, which
affected all euro area economies, virtually all of the job losses observed in this second period
were concentrated in countries that were adversely affected by government bond market
tensions (Figure 2).
Figure 2
Relationship between financial stress and unemployment
The sovereign debt crisis operated through various channels, but one of its most important
effects was to disable in part the tools of macroeconomic stabilisation.
On the fiscal side, non-market services - including public administration, education and
healthcare - had contributed positively to employment in virtually all countries during the first
phase of the crisis, thus somewhat cushioning the shock. In the second phase, however,
fiscal policy was constrained by concerns over debt sustainability and the lack of a common
backstop, especially as discussions related to sovereign debt restructuring began. The
necessary fiscal consolidation had to be frontloaded to restore investor confidence, creating
a fiscal drag and a downturn in public sector employment which added to the ongoing
contraction in employment in other sectors.
Sovereign pressures also interrupted the homogenous transmission of monetary policy
across the euro area. Despite very low policy rates, the cost of capital actually rose in
stressed countries in this period, meaning monetary and fiscal policy effectively tightened in
tandem. Hence, an important focus of our monetary policy in this period was - and still is - to
repair the monetary transmission mechanism. Establishing a precise link between these
impairments and unemployment performance is not straightforward. However, ECB staff
estimates of the "credit gap" for stressed countries - the difference between the actual and
normal volumes of credit in the absence of crisis effects - suggest that that credit supply
conditions are exerting a significant drag on economic activity.2
Cyclical and structural factors
Cyclical factors have therefore certainly contributed to the rise in unemployment. And the
economic situation in the euro area suggests they are still playing a role. The most recent
GDP data confirm that the recovery in the euro area remains uniformly weak, with subdued
wage growth even in non-stressed countries suggesting lacklustre demand. In these
circumstances, it seems likely that uncertainty over the strength of the recovery is weighing
on business investment and slowing the rate at which workers are being rehired.
That being said, there are signs that, in some countries at least, a significant share of
unemployment is also structural.
For example, the euro area Beveridge curve - which summarises unemployment
developments at a given level of labour demand (or vacancies) - suggests the emergence of
a structural mismatch across euro area labour markets (Figure 3). In the first phase of the
crisis strong declines in labour demand resulted in a steep rise in euro area unemployment,
with a movement down along the Beveridge curve. The second recessionary episode,
however, led to a further strong increase in the unemployment rate even though aggregate
vacancy rates showed marked signs of improvement. This may imply a more permanent
outward shift.
Figure 3
Evolution of the euro area Beveridge curve over the crisis
Part of the explanation for the movement of the Beveridge curve seems to be the sheer
magnitude of the job destruction in some countries, which has led to reduced job-finding
rates, extended durations of unemployment spells and a higher share of long-term
unemployment. This reflects, in particular, the strong sectoral downsizing of the previously
overblown construction sector (Figure 4), which, consistent with experience in the US, tends
to lower match efficiency.3 By the end of 2013, the stock of long-term unemployed (those
unemployed for a year or more) accounted for over 6% of the total euro area labour force -
more than double the pre-crisis level.
Figure 4
Evolution of euro area employment by sector and educational level
Another important explanation seems to be a lack of redeployment opportunities for
displaced low-skilled workers, as evidenced by the growing disparity between the skills of the
labour force and the skills required by employers. Analysis of the evolution of skill mismatch4
suggests a notable increase in mismatch at regional, country and euro area level (Figure 5).
As the previous figure shows, employment losses in the euro area are strongly concentrated
among low skilled workers.
3
U.S. industry-level studies find that a large part of the decline in match efficiency is driven by the low level of
job openings and hires per vacancy in the construction sector - see e.g. Barnichon, Regis, Michael W. L.
Elsby, Bart Hobijn and Ayșegül Șahin (2012) "Which Industries are Shifting the Beveridge Curve?" Monthly
Labor Review, June 2012, 25-37; Davis, Steven J., R. Jason Faberman, and John C. Haltiwanger (2012)
"Recruiting Intensity during and after the Great Recession: National and Industry Evidence," American
Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings.
4
Based on skill mismatch indexes computed as the difference between skill demand (proxied by educational
attainments of the employed) and skill supply (proxied by the educational attainments of the labour force or
unemployed, respectively). See (forthcoming) ECB Occasional Paper entitled "Comparisons and contrasts of
the impact of the crisis on euro area labour markets''.
Figure 5
Skill mismatch indices for the euro area
All in all, estimates provided by international organisations - in particular, the European
Commission, the OECD and the IMF - suggest that the crisis has resulted in an increase in
structural unemployment across the euro area, rising from an average (across the three
institutions) of 8.8% in 2008 to 10.3% by 2013.5
Nuancing the picture
There are nevertheless two important qualifications to make here.
The first is that estimates of structural unemployment are surrounded by considerable
uncertainty, in particular in real time. For example, research by the European Commission
suggests that estimates of the Non-Accelerating Wage Rate of Unemployment (NAWRU) in
the current situation are likely to overstate the magnitude of unemployment linked to
structural factors, notably in the countries most severely hit by the crisis.6
The second qualification is that behind the aggregate data lies a very heterogeneous picture.
The current unemployment rate in the euro area of 11.5% is the (weighted) average of
unemployment rates close to 5% in Germany and 25% in Spain. Structural developments
also differ: analysis of the Beveridge curve at the country level reveals, for example, a
pronounced inward shift in Germany, whereas in France, Italy and in particular Spain, the
curves move outward.
This heterogeneity reflects different initial conditions, such as varying sectoral compositions
of employment (in particular the share employed in construction), as well as the fact that
unemployment rates have historically been persistently higher in some euro area countries
than others.7 But it also reflects the relationship between labour market institutions and the
impact of shocks on employment.8 The economies that have weathered the crisis best in
terms of employment tend also to be those with more flexibility in the labour market to adjust
to economic conditions.
In Germany, for example, the inward shift in the Beveridge curve seen over the course of the
crisis follows a trend that began in the mid-2000s after the introduction of the Hartz labour
market reforms. Its relatively stronger employment performance was also linked to the fact
that German firms had instruments available to reduce employees' working time at
reasonable costs - i.e. the intensive margin - including reducing overtime hours, greater
working time flexibility at the firm level, and extensive use of short-time work schemes.9
Even within the group of countries that experienced the sovereign debt crisis most acutely,
we can see a differential impact of labour market institutions on employment. Ireland and
Spain, for example, both experienced a large destruction of employment in the construction
sector after the Lehman shock, but fared quite differently during the sovereign debt crisis.
Unemployment in Ireland stabilised and then fell, whereas in Spain it increased until January
2013 (Figure 6). From 2011 to 2013 structural unemployment is estimated to have risen by
around 0.5 percentages points in Ireland, whereas it increased by more than 2.5 percentages
points in Spain.10
This diverging performance can in part be accounted for by differences in net migration. But
it also reflects the fact that Ireland entered the crisis with a relatively flexible labour market
and adopted further labour market reforms under its EU-IMF programme beginning in
November 2010. Spain, on the other hand, entered the crisis with strong labour market
rigidities and reform only started meaningfully in 2012.
Importantly, until then, the capacity of firms to adjust to the new economic conditions was
hampered in Spain by sectoral and regional collective bargaining agreements and wage
indexation. Survey evidence indicates that Spain was among the countries where indexation
was more frequent - covering about 70% of firms.11 As a result, as Figure 6 shows, nominal
compensation per employee continued to rise in Spain until the third quarter of 2011, despite
a more than 12 percentage point increase in unemployment in that time. In Ireland, by
contrast, downward wage adjustment began already in the fourth quarter of 2008 and
proceeded more quickly.
7
In the short pre-crisis period between 1995 and 2007, for which we have homogeneous euro area data,
average unemployment rates were around 9% in France and Italy, but above 14% in Spain. In Germany, the
unemployment rate was also 9%, but only as a result of a large, previous increase following reunification.
8
Blanchard, Olivier, and Justin Wolfers (1999), "The Role of Shocks and Institutions in the Rise of European
Unemployment: the Aggregate Evidence", NBER Working Paper 7282.
9
See Burda, Michael C., and Jennifer Hunt (2011), "What Explains the German Labour Market Miracle in the
Great Recession", NBER Working Paper No. 17187; and Brenke, Karl, Ulf Rinne and Klaus F. Zimmermann
(2013), "Short-time work: The German answer to the Great Recession", International Labour Review Vol. 152,
Issue 2.
10
Average of European Commission, OECD and IMF estimates.
11
European Central Bank (2010), Wage Dynamics in Europe: Final Report of the Wage Dynamics Network
(WDN), European Central Bank.
The upshot was that, whereas the Irish labour market facilitated some adjustment through
prices, the Spanish labour market adjusted primarily through quantities: firms were forced to
reduce labour costs by reducing employment. And due to a high degree of duality in the
Spanish labour market, this burden of adjustment was concentrated in particular on a less
protected group - those on temporary contracts. These had been particularly prevalent in
Spain in advance of the crisis, accounting for around one third of all employment
contracts.12
In Spain, as in other stressed countries, a number of these labour market rigidities have
since been addressed through structural reforms with positive effects. For example, the
OECD estimates that the 2012 labour market reform in Spain has improved transitions out of
unemployment and into employment at all unemployment durations.13
Figure 6
Unemployment and nominal compensation developments in Ireland and Spain
To sum up, unemployment in the euro area is characterised by relatively complex
interactions. There have been differentiated demand shocks across countries. These shocks
have interacted with initial conditions and national labour market institutions in different ways
- and the interactions have changed as new reforms have been adopted. Consequently,
estimates of the degree of cyclical and structural unemployment have to be made with quite
some caution. But it is clear that such heterogeneity in labour market institutions is a source
of fragility for the monetary union.
2. Responding to high unemployment
So what conclusions can we draw from this as policymakers? The only conclusion we can
safely draw, in my view, is that we need action on both sides of the economy: aggregate
demand policies have to be accompanied by national structural policies.
Demand side policies are not only justified by the significant cyclical component in
unemployment. They are also relevant because, given prevailing uncertainty, they help
insure against the risk that a weak economy is contributing to hysteresis effects. Indeed,
while in normal conditions uncertainty would imply a higher degree of caution for fear of
overshooting, at present the situation is different. The risks of "doing too little" - i.e. that cyclical
unemployment becomes structural - outweigh those of "doing too much" - that is, excessive
upward wage and price pressures.
At the same time, such aggregate demand policies will ultimately not be effective without
action in parallel on the supply side. Like all advanced economies, we are operating in a set
of initial conditions determined by the last financial cycle, which include low inflation, low
interest rates and a large debt overhang in the private and public sectors. In such
circumstances, due to the zero lower bound constraint, there is a real risk that monetary
policy loses some effectiveness in generating aggregate demand. The debt overhang also
inevitably reduces fiscal space.
In this context, engineering a higher level and trend of potential growth - and thereby also
government income - can help recover a margin for manoeuvre and allow both policies
regain traction over the economic cycle. Reducing structural unemployment and raising
labour participation is a key part of that. This is also particularly relevant for the euro area
as, to list just one channel, higher unemployment in certain countries could lead to
elevated loan losses, less resilient banks and hence a more fragmented transmission of
monetary policy.
Boosting aggregate demand
On the demand side, monetary policy can and should play a central role, which currently
means an accommodative monetary policy for an extended period of time. I am confident
that the package of measures we announced in June will indeed provide the intended boost
to demand, and we stand ready to adjust our policy stance further.
We have already seen exchange rate movements that should support both aggregate
demand and inflation, which we expect to be sustained by the diverging expected paths of
policy in the US and the euro area (Figure 7). We will launch our first Targeted Long-Term
Refinancing Operation in September, which has so far garnered significant interest from
banks. And our preparation for outright purchases in asset-backed security (ABS) markets is
fast moving forward and we expect that it should contribute to further credit easing. Indeed,
such outright purchases would meaningfully contribute to diversifying the channels for us to
generate liquidity.
Figure 7
Expected real interest rate path in the euro area and the US
Inflation has been on a downward path from around 2.5% in the summer of 2012 to 0.4%
most recently. I comment on these movements about once a month in the press conference
and I have given several reasons for this downward path in inflation, saying it is because of
food and energy price declines; because after mid-2012 it is mostly exchange rate
appreciation that has impacted on price movements; more recently we have had the
RussiaUkraine geopolitical risks which will also exert a negative impact on the euro area economy;
and of course we had the relative price adjustment that had to happen in the stressed
countries as well as high unemployment.
I have said in principle most of these effects should in the end wash out because most of
them are temporary in nature - though not all of them. But I also said if this period of low
inflation were to last for a prolonged period of time the risk to price stability would increase.
Over the month of August financial markets have indicated that inflation expectations
exhibited significant declines at all horizons. The 5year/5year swap rate declined by 15 basis
points to just below 2% - this is the metric that we usually use for defining medium term
inflation.
But if we go to shorter and medium-term horizons the revisions have been even more
significant. The real rates on the short and medium term have gone up, on the long term they
haven't gone up because we are witnessing a decline in long term nominal rates, not only in
the euro area but everywhere really. The Governing Council will acknowledge these
developments and within its mandate will use all the available instruments needed to ensure
price stability over the medium term.
Turning to fiscal policy, since 2010 the euro area has suffered from fiscal policy being less
available and effective, especially compared with other large advanced economies. This is
not so much a consequence of high initial debt ratios - public debt is in aggregate not higher
in the euro area than in the US or Japan. It reflects the fact that the central bank in those
countries could act and has acted as a backstop for government funding. This is an important
reason why markets spared their fiscal authorities the loss of confidence that constrained
many euro area governments' market access. This has in turn allowed fiscal consolidation in
the US and Japan to be more backloaded.
Thus, it would be helpful for the overall stance of policy if fiscal policy could play a greater
role alongside monetary policy, and I believe there is scope for this, while taking into account
our specific initial conditions and legal constraints. These initial conditions include levels of
government expenditure and taxation in the euro area that are, in relation to GDP, already
among the highest in the world. And we are operating within a set of fiscal rules - the
Stability and Growth Pact - which acts as an anchor for confidence and that would be
selfdefeating to break.
Let me in this context emphasise four elements.
First, the existing flexibility within the rules could be used to better address the weak
recovery and to make room for the cost of needed structural reforms.
Second, there is leeway to achieve a more growth-friendly composition of fiscal policies. As a
start, it should be possible to lower the tax burden in a budget-neutral way.14 This strategy
could have positive effects even in the short-term if taxes are lowered in those areas where
the short-term fiscal multiplier is higher, and expenditures cut in unproductive areas where
the multiplier is lower. Research suggests positive second-round effects on business
confidence and private investment could also be achieved in the short-term.15
Third, in parallel it may be useful to have a discussion on the overall fiscal stance of the euro
area. Unlike in other major advanced economies, our fiscal stance is not based on a single
budget voted for by a single parliament, but on the aggregation of eighteen national budgets
and the EU budget. Stronger coordination among the different national fiscal stances should
in principle allow us to achieve a more growth-friendly overall fiscal stance for the euro area.
Fourth, complementary action at the EU level would also seem to be necessary to ensure
both an appropriate aggregate position and a large public investment programme - which is
consistent with proposals by the incoming President of the European Commission.16
Reforming structural policies
No amount of fiscal or monetary accommodation, however, can compensate for the
necessary structural reforms in the euro area. As I said, structural unemployment was
already estimated to be very high coming into the crisis (around 9%). Indeed, some research
suggests it has been high since the 1970s.17 And given the interactions I described, there are
important reasons why national structural reforms that tackle this problem can no longer be
delayed.
This reform agenda spans labour markets, product markets and actions to improve the
business environment. I will however focus here on labour markets, where there are two
cross-cutting themes that I see as a priority.
The first is policies that allow workers to redeploy quickly to new job opportunities and hence
lower unemployment duration. Such policies include enabling firm-level agreements that
allow wages to better reflect local labour market conditions and productivity developments;
allowing for greater wage differentiation across workers and between sectors; reductions in
employment adjustment rigidities and especially labour market dualities; and product market
reforms which help to speed up the reallocation of resources and employment to more
productive sectors.
The second theme is raising the skill intensity of the workforce. We have already seen the
disproportionate effect of the crisis on low skilled workers, which implies a period of
reskilling will be necessary to get people back into work. The longer-term effects of high youth
unemployment also point to this conclusion. The number of unemployed aged between
15 and 24, relative to the labour force of the same age group, increased from an already high
level of around 15% in 2007 to 24% in 2013. This has most likely left significant "scarring" as
the young have lost access to a crucial step of on-the-job training.
The issue of skill intensity is also very relevant for potential growth. While raising labour
participation is crucial, demographic prospects imply that it will provide a diminishing
contribution to future potential. Lifting trend growth will have to come mainly through raising
labour productivity. Thus, we need to ensure that, to the extent possible, employment is
concentrated in high-value added, high-productivity sectors, which in turn is a function of
skills.
What is more, in the global economy the euro area cannot compete on costs alone with
emerging countries, if only because of our social model. Our comparative advantage
therefore has to come from combining cost competitiveness with specialisation in high-value
added activities - a business model that countries such as Germany have successfully
demonstrated. Seen from this perspective, insufficient skill levels will effectively raise the
non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU) by causing more workers to drop
out of the 'competitiveness zone' and become unemployable.
Raising skills is clearly first and foremost about education, where there is much that could
still be done. The percentage of the working age population that has completed upper
secondary or tertiary education in the euro area ranges from a high of more than 90% in
some countries to a low of around 40% in others. But there is also an important role for
active labour market policies, such as lifelong learning, and for eradicating distortions such
labour market duality. The latter would, among other things, help reduce inefficient worker
turnover and increase incentives for employers and employees to invest in developing
jobspecific skills.
3. Conclusion
Let me conclude.
Unemployment in the euro area is a complex phenomenon, but the solution is not overly
complicated to understand. A coherent strategy to reduce unemployment has to involve both
demand and supply side policies, at both the euro area and the national levels. And only if
the strategy is truly coherent can it be successful.
Without higher aggregate demand, we risk higher structural unemployment, and
governments that introduce structural reforms could end up running just to stand still. But
without determined structural reforms, aggregate demand measures will quickly run out of
steam and may ultimately become less effective. The way back to higher employment, in
other words, is a policy mix that combines monetary, fiscal and structural measures at the
union level and at the national level. This will allow each member of our union to achieve a
sustainably high level of employment.
We should not forget that the stakes for our monetary union are high. It is not unusua