We all know the PIIGS from way back in the GFC: the poor, indebted, corrupt shithole countries -> Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain.

But in recent years we've learned that the Med (#874003) is where the future is.

Here we get another abbreviation that isn't gonna catch on: the overregulated, unemployed shitholes of northern Europe: The SNIFD!

The rich world’s labour market is on a roll. In the past three years the average unemployment rate in the OECD, a club of mostly wealthy countries, has repeatedly hit historical lows. The employment rate of working-age people is at an all-time high (see chart 1).

Nowhere has undergone a more remarkable transformation than southern Europe. At the peak of the euro crisis, in 2012-13, the average unemployment rate across Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain neared 20%. Pundits dubbed the southern European countries “PIGS”, unfavourably contrasting them with the supposedly harder-working northerners in Germany, the Netherlands and Nordic countries.

But all is not well in the SNIFD countries (Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Finland, Denmark)

SNIFD could still learn a thing or two from the PIGS. The OECD recently praised Italy’s programmes for improving lifelong learning, which may have helped reduce long-term unemployment. The IMF has noted that Greece’s reform efforts “have facilitated labour-market adjustment since the pandemic”. The fund also praised Spain “for the unprecedented decline in temporary employment” that followed a labour-market reform in 2021. While Nordic labour markets sniffle, their porcine rivals really are flying.

archive: https://archive.md/0AVXI