The Netherlands: Quarter of IT firms in the Netherlands have staff shortages

One in four information technology firms in the Netherlands say their production has been down since April because they are short of staff, the national statistics office CBS said on Tuesday. The IT sector has been most affected by the tight jobs market since the first quarter of 2015 when one out of every nine IT companies had staffing problems. Until then the mining sector (gas, oil) had the biggest need for employees. There were 12,300 job vacancies in the IT sector in the first quarter of 2017, equating to 6.3% of the national total, the CBS said. The catering sector (hotels, restaurants, cafés) report an 11.3% shortage, industry 9.9% and construction 7.6%.

Read more at DutchNews.nl: Quarter of IT firms in the Netherlands have staff shortages http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2017/06/quarter-of-it-firms-in-the-netherlands-have-staff-shortages/

One in four information technology firms in the Netherlands say their production has been down since April because they are short of staff, the national statistics office CBS said on Tuesday.

The IT sector has been most affected by the tight jobs market since the first quarter of 2015 when one out of every nine IT companies had staffing problems. Until then the mining sector (gas, oil) had the biggest need for employees.

There were 12,300 job vacancies in the IT sector in the first quarter of 2017, equating to 6.3% of the national total, the CBS saiThe catering sector (hotels, restaurants, cafés) report an 11.3% shortage, industry 9.9% and construction 7.6%.

Read more: Quarter of IT firms in the Netherlands have staff shortages - DutchNews.nl

EU Migrant Crises: The economics behind Europe’s migrant crisis - by Mohamed A. El-Erian

Fleeing economic and social miseries of home countries

As our Eurostar train zipped from London through the Chunnel to Paris, I couldn't help thinking about the thousands of migrants languishing on both sides of the English Channel. Once again, national and regional political systems are struggling to cope with a mounting human tragedy whose spillover effects involve disruptions to commerce, and all this is stoking a political crisis. 

The economics of the Channel migrant crisis are quite clear, being basically about supply, demand and regulatory failures. They also shed light on the potential solutions, though they will take time to materialize.

The supply of migrants to Europe is fueled by waves of people fleeing the economic and social misery of their home countries — and, in some case, political oppression, persecution and violence.

They do so in hopes of a better future for themselves and their children. The temptation for some to try and make it all the way to the U.K., often after a perilous sea crossing and a fraught trip through western Europe, is amplified by the attractiveness of an economy with low unemployment, comprehensive social services and a country where many already know the language. 

Although the supply of migrants has increased, the demand for migrant labour has gone the other way. Tougher laws have made it harder and more dangerous for employers to hire undocumented workers. And with a European unemployment rate of more than 10 per cent, the demand is further damped. 

This imbalance in supply and demand isn't one that can be sorted out by the markets' normal equilibrating mechanism. The market-clearing wage — that is, the price that would lower the migration incentive while facilitating the absorption of those still inclined to risk life and limb — is well below the minimum wage prevailing in Europe; and any meaningful reduction in the wage would involve significant and unacceptable social disruptions to local populations in Europe.

Read more: The economics behind Europe’s migrant crisis: MIGRANTS

The Netherlands: Finding a new job heads up list of Dutch New Year resolutions

Finding a new job is a new entrant in the top five Dutch New Year resolutions, according to research by financial services group ING. Losing weight remains top of the list with 13%, followed by less stress (9%) and doing more sport (7%). Finding a new job is in equal fourth place with taking more exercise – both on 5%.

However, despite the good intentions, just one in four people manage to keep their resolutions for an entire year. In addition, 22% of the 1,300 plus people polled by ING don’t make any New Year resolutions at all.

Almere-Digest

Europe's job market has strengths the US doesn't - by Paul Wiseman and Christopher S. Rugaber

Compare unemployment rates, and America's job market looks much stronger than Europe's. The U.S. rate for August, being released Friday, is expected to be a near-normal 6.1 percent. In the 18 countries that use the euro currency, by contrast, it's a collective 11.5 percent.

Yet by some measures, Europe is doing better. It's been more successful in keeping people working, letting the disabled stay on the job and boosting the proportion of women in the workforce.

And Europeans in their prime working years — ages 25 to 54 — are more likely to be employed than Americans are.

Fewer than 77 percent of prime-age Americans have jobs, compared with 80 percent in Belgium, 81 percent in France and 82 percent in the Netherlands, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

If Americans 25 to 54 were as likely to be working as Germans the same age, 8.3 million more Americans would have jobs.

''Where we used to talk about the U.S. having a high-powered labor market in the late 1990s, Germany has that now,'' says Jacob Kirkegaard, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

It's true, of course, that the unemployed have a much harder time finding a job in, say, Spain or Greece than the United States. Spain's unemployment rate is nearly 25 percent. For people under 25, the rate tops 50 percent.

Though the eurozone's overall unemployment rate is 11.5 percent, individual countries include low-rate nations like Germany and Austria (4.9 percent) as well as some with much higher unemployment than the United States: Portugal (14 percent), Italy (12.6 percent), France (10.3 percent), Belgium (8.5 percent).

Yet Josh Bivens, research director at the liberal Economic Policy Institute, says America's relatively low ''headline unemployment rate is painting too rosy a picture of how the U.S. labor market is doing.''

The fall in the U.S. unemployment rate has been exaggerated by rising numbers of adults neither working nor looking for work. The government counts people as unemployed only if they're looking for a job. When many stop looking, the unemployment rate can fall even if few people are hired.

The share of Americans 16 to 64 either working or seeking work has fallen to 72.7 percent from 75.3 percent at the end of 2007, when the Great Recession began. In the 28 countries in the European Union, the figure has risen to 72.3 percent from 70.5 percent in late 2007. The United States and Europe calculate their employment rates in broadly similar ways.

No single reason explains why prime-age employment and workforce participation trends are weaker in the United States.

Read more: Europe's job market has strengths the US doesn't - Worcester Telegram & Gazette - telegram.com

Technology shakes up US economy - by Robin Harding

New technologies are transforming the structure of the US economy but creating only modest numbers of jobs, according to the biggest official survey of businesses, conducted only once every five years.

Read more: Technology shakes up US economy - FT.com

Germany - Study: New immigrants are better qualified than Germans

Many Germans have a wrong image of immigrants. Long gone are the days when unskilled laborers came to Germany. Today, the country attracts top talent and it’s a win-win situation, says a Bertelsmann Foundation study. 

It's a two-hour drive from Shuo Chen's birth place to Shanghai. In order to enable him to get a good education, his family decided to have him live with relatives and go to school in the mega-metropolis. Shuo Chen was six years old at the time.

At the age of 19, Shuo took an even bigger leap: He left the high-rise buildings and moved to the German countryside. In Worms, in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, he studied economics. Today, 35-year old Shuo Chen has a leadership position in a German mechanical engineering company. Success stories like his are actually quite common in Germany, experts say.

Read more: Study: New immigrants are better qualified than Germans | Germany | DW.DE | 26.05.2013

Education: German students are poorly prepared for the job market

Germany's dual vocational education system may be an export hit, but that does not automatically mean everything is fine on the country's market for apprenticeship positions - to the contrary. A recent study shows that, in 2012, about 550,000 new training contracts were signed - the lowest level since 2005. Many young people break off their apprenticeship, while other positions remain unfilled. German students often have misconceptions about work routines, Bremen-based vocational training specialist, Felix Rauner, says. He says that has to do with the poor career counseling at German schools.

Read more: German students are poorly prepared for the job market | Germany | DW.DE | 21.05.2013

Technology Employment: App economy’ is sizzling with potential - Rob Hotakainen and Nancy Dahlberg

Raymond Gonzalez, a Florida International University senior, is developing an iPhone application called Pet Finder that will allow users to browse the dogs and cats at the local animal shelter or request an animal for adoption. He is also part of a team creating mobile apps that track bank failures, issue alerts about earthquakes and organize homework assignments.

It’s a well-calculated effort to learn as much as he can about mobile technology as quickly as possible. “My goal is to make all these apps free and open source while using the knowledge gained to build my startup company after graduation,” said Gonzalez, who is majoring in information technology.

Whether he starts his own company or works for someone else, Gonzalez is preparing to be a player in a high-paying, sizzling new industry, one that might provide the United States with a big opportunity to increase its exports in coming years.

While the overall economy still lags, the “app economy” has created nearly 500,000 jobs in the United States since 2007, when there were none.

Companies in the US even worry that the nation isn’t moving fast enough to produce new talent for thousands of unfilled jobs as consumers demand more and more gizmos and gadgets for their smartphones.

Mobile apps developers can expect pay increases of 9 percent next year, among the highest of any jobs, putting them in the range of $92,750 to $133,500 a year, according to a survey that the staffing and consulting firm Robert Half International released last month.

If the United States can maintain its dominance in the industry, many say the app economy could make a big dent in the country’s federal trade deficit. Last year, for example, more than 20 percent of the apps downloaded in China were made by U.S. developers.

Note EU-Digest: Starting today through November 29, in Prague, the Czech Republic  - "the Future of Web Apps" conference.

Read more: ‘App economy’ is sizzling with potential - Technology - MiamiHerald.com

EU- Germany's Job Boom

While the U.S. and the U.K. brace for spending cuts and austerity, Germany is in the midst of an economic boom.

Germany has emerged from the financial crisis faster and in far better shape than the rest of Europe. The German growth rate almost doubled in the first quarter of 2011; corporate profits have soared, and industrial production is expected to keep growing — at least for the rest of this year.

But as manufacturers add extra shifts, there's a new shortage of skilled workers — and that's led to renewed calls to ease restrictions on immigration.

EU-Digest

Thousands of highly-qualified Spanish jobseekers hoping to migrate to northern Europe

Architects, engineers and other specialist technically-qualified young people from Spain have been clogging up websites offering jobs in Germany with applications ever since chancellor Angela Merkel announced that the country was seeking unemployed Spaniards.

With Spain's unemployment rate at 20.33 per cent – rising to 40 per cent among the under-35s – Merkel is now actively seeking highly-qualified jobseekers from Spain to mop up the deficit in professionals in Germany's employment market.

She intended to make this public at the Spanish-German summit meeting in Madrid on February 3, but already, thousands of job seekers from Spain are making plans to migrate north.

Note EU-Digest: this is another good reason for having the EU and  the ability for European workers to move freely along the member state to fill open positions.

For more: Thousands of highly-qualified Spanish jobseekers hoping to migrate to northern Europe

Post Gazette: Alternative Energy Creates Jobs - 'Green jobs' supported at US Senate hearing held in Pittsburgh - by Don Hopey

For the complete report from the Post Gazette click on this link

Alternative Energy Creates Jobs: 'Green jobs' supported at US Senate hearing held in Pittsburgh - by Don Hopey

Clean energy and the "green jobs" attached to it enjoyed wide support in testimony at a U.S. Senate hearing in Pittsburgh yesterday, but differences remain about how and how quickly federal policies should push those goals. Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., who hosted the hearing, acknowledged those tensions between "competing interests" in Pennsylvania coal, natural gas and alternative energy industries as the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee began work on legislation titled "Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act," introduced earlier this month.

Michael Peck, North American spokesman for Gamesa USA, a Spanish wind turbine manufacturer with factories and 850 employees in Pennsylvania, urged establishment of a national standard mandating 12 percent renewable energy by 2012. That would send a strong message to investors and boost demand and job creation, he said.