Labour market: Eurogroup president says higher productivity is the answer to Europe’s demographic challenge

Brussels – Are there no young people? Then we will work harder to make up for their absence. This is the equation and the new logic for the European labour market according to Eurogroup President Kyriakos Pierrakakis, who is convinced that the problem of an ageing population, an increasingly structural problem, can be solved by increasing working hours and workloads for those who are there. “With the demographic challenge, growth can no longer be based on workforce turnover, but on higher productivity,” he said, speaking at the European Investment Bank (EIB) Annual Forum.

 After all, Europeans are having fewer children and young people are moving abroad, and the system is starting to creak more and more. The political response is not to reverse this trend through targeted actions and real policies for families, but to condemn the working population to ever greater sacrifices. This idea was already put forward during the last parliamentary term by the then Commissioner for Demography, Dubravka Šuica (now responsible for the Mediterranean), who calmly supported the idea of raising the retirement age, condemning workers to a longer working life. 

This approach was confirmed today (4 March) by Pierrakakis, who called for those in employment to do more. After all, “the demographic model exploited for decades has reached its limits,” says the Eurogroup president, thinking out loud, who does not dwell on the problem posed for the sustainability of public finances by having to pay more and more pensions while fewer active workers are contributing — an issue that concerns Italy in particular, which has already been warned by the European Commission.

In short, those who do not die from war or disease will die from work. Or it will continue to suffer from competition from older workers, who keep their jobs even after retirement. A trend that, given the current situation, risks being encouraged more and more.