, but people willing to work are unable to find a job is already indicative of structural factors playing a role. estimates suggest that structural unemployment in the euro area, which was already high prior to the crisis, rose by about 17 % from 2008 to 2013. 1 structural unemployment is not only distressing for those the european commission, the organisation for economic co - operation and development ( oecd ) and the international monetary fund ( imf ) use different estimation methods, resulting on average in structural unemployment being estimated at 8. 8 % in 2008 and 10. 3 % in 2013. bis central bankers ’ speeches affected, but can have a substantial impact on potential output in the longer term. it is essential, therefore, to avoid hysteresis effects from rises in spells of long - term unemployment. particularly in countries that were hard hit, a large part of the decline in employment can be attributed to certain sectors. for instance, in estonia, ireland and spain, the previously oversized construction sectors had to downsize substantially. the spanish construction sector alone has accounted for around half of all job losses in the country since the start of the crisis. moreover, such a collapse in the construction sector has an enormous impact further down the production chain. so, the number of people affected – for instance those providing building materials or real estate services – is estimated to be much greater than the 1. 8 million who lost jobs in the construction sector. the resulting mismatch between the skills offered by unemployed workers and those that employers require explains why vacancies are not filled, despite people being willing to work. in fact, skills mismatch has increased noticeably in the euro area and seems to be becoming more entrenched. 2 potential solutions to increase high qualified employment if labour market developments are so heterogeneous across countries, why don ’ t the unemployed simply move to places where the demand for labour is higher? indeed, labour mobility is a powerful tool for tackling high localised unemployment levels and alleviating emerging bottlenecks in faster - growing euro area economies. that is why labour mobility is a core element of a successful currency union. it leads to a better match between workers ’ skills and employers ’ demands. in economic jargon, it aids factor re - allocation by moving labour to where it is needed, which in turn contributes to overall growth in a monetary union and acts as an effective adjustment mechanism. so, how does europe fare in terms of labour mobility? the free movement of workers

vitor constancio : assessing the new phase of unconventional monetary policy at the european central bank panel remarks by mr vitor constancio, vice - president of the european central bank, at the annual congress of the european economic association, university of mannheim, 25 august 2015. * * * accompanying charts can be also found on the european central bank ’ s website. it is a great pleasure to participate in this policy panel and to share the stage with such distinguished fellow participants. my plan today is to present some key features of the monetary policy measures recently implemented by the ecb. as you all know, in january this year the ecb launched the most recent addition to its suite of tools – the public sector purchase programme ( pspp ), popularly referred to as quantitative easing. together with a programme of targeted liquidity provision and a programme of private sector asset purchases, the pspp marked a new phase of the ecb ’ s unconventional monetary policy. previous non - standard measures were mainly aimed at redressing impairments in the monetary policy transmission mechanism and fostering a regular pass - through of the monetary policy stance. their implications for the ecb ’ s balance sheet were accommodated in a merely passive way to satisfy the liquidity demand created by banks. in contrast, with the new measures implemented since june 2014, the governing council is more actively steering the size of the ecb ’ s balance sheet towards much higher levels in order to avoid the risks of too prolonged a period of low inflation in a situation where policy rates have reached their effective lower bound. general considerations underlying the new phase of unconventional monetary policy the launch of the new phase of non - standard measures in june 2014 must be viewed in the context of the decline in inflation rates since the second half of 2013, which was accompanied by persistently fragile euro area growth prospects, even after the sovereign debt crisis abated over the course of 2012. the economy was still in recession for most of 2013 and annual gdp growth figures only became positive in late 2013, leaving significant economic slack. a weak recovery took hold over the course of 2014 with growth rates around and below 1 %, but the outlook deteriorated again during the autumn, with inflation turning negative later that year. the 2015 gdp growth forecasts for the euro area in the ecb staff macroeconomic projections had declined from 1. 7 % in june to 1 % by december. at the same time, and in contrast to previous developments, weak growth was accompanied by a prolonged period of declining