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* Expanding numbers of young Greeks unemployed
* Jobless or low-paid young voters may sway polls
By Ingrid Melander and Renee Maltezou
Growing youth unemployment in Greece will drive voters away from the conservatives on Oct. 4, but the opposition has yet to convince voters it has a better cure for what has become a chronic disease.
Unemployment among young people has been structurally high in Greece for some 20 years, affecting almost every family, but the problem is worsening as the country faces its first recession in 16 years before next month's parliamentary vote.
Data showed on Thursday nearly 18 percent of 15-29 year old Greek workers were unemployed in the second quarter, compared with 8.9 percent for the whole population and strongly up from last year.
The issue has proven explosive in the past. Last year leftists and young students took to the streets in Greece's worst riots in decades over the economy and the killing of a teenager by police.
Analysts cite many factors: labour laws that make it hard to hire and fire, a minimum wage set too high and a university system out of touch with the business world, producing too many graduates in fields like mathematics and aquaculture and too few in nursing and manufacturing.
"High youth unemployment means many things must be wrong with the economy," said Fitch analyst Chris Pryce. "It tells us the economy is very inflexible."
Polls show the ruling New Democracy trailing the main opposition socialist PASOK party by about 6 percentage points.
But PASOK does not yet have enough votes to form a government, and with Greece's 250-billion euro ($364 billion) economy sharply hit by the global slowdown, the party will have its work cut out to show it can solve the problems.
"If someone can make them (the young) believe they are going to have opportunities in the future, this would be a serious criteria to vote," said Costas Panagopoulos, managing director of pollster ALCO.
"But this is not easy," he said. "Young people seem to reject PASOK and New Democracy, they blame them for what they are suffering, for what they are living now."
Source: "Reuters", 17 September 2009
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSLE716620 |
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