February 23, 2007
Lies, damn lies and statistics
As commutes go, it’s not exactly bad. My tram ride to central Brussels takes me past Cartier, Longchamp and other designer stores that line Avenue Louise, one of the city’s longest and poshest thoroughfares.
The swanky shops and chic art nouveau apartment buildings dotting the avenue and surrounding suburbs are just one sign of the entrenched wealth in parts of Brussels.
Figures published this week show the city has the third highest GDP per inhabitant in the European Union. Boosted in part by the presence of the EU institutions, and service and manufacturing sectors, it trails only second-placed Luxembourg and central London.
Look a little closer though, and the lustre begins to fade. In a striking contrast to its moneyed image, Brussels has a 20 per cent unemployment rate, against 7.8 per cent nationally.
Commentators say the city’s big population of immigrants needs better integration into the workforce. The prohibitively high social costs employers must pay is another barrier to hiring.
A further controversial argument is that generous unemployment benefits – offered for unlimited periods – stop people seeking jobs.
In addition, many non-Bruxellois commute into the city from other regions, meaning the jobless rate is higher than in some other parts of Belgium.
As the EU grapples with a debate over making its labour markets more flexible to take account of global competition, the arguments are playing out on its very doorstep.
I know a Brussels architect (Belgian). He tells me that Poles have virtually taken over the construction, plumbing, electrician, and decoration sectors that he works with. Where the bosses are Belgian, they overwhelmingly employ Poles. And now many Poles have set up Belgian companies. In his experience, the Poles simply do better work than their Belgian counterparts.
Is there a dirtect link with unemployment in Brussels? I don’t know. I don’t get the impression that the mass of unemployed here consists of Belgian plumbers, electricians, decorators, or construction workers, but I may be wrong. I’d be interested to see official statistics.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | February 23rd, 2007 at 1:56 pm | Report this commentGDP per inhabitant = GDP/inhabitant ratio, if I am correct… If ‘many non-Bruxellois commute’ to work every day, and I would say it is a shocking euphesism, couldn’t we argue that we are being cheated by this figure?
Posted by: N.V. | February 23rd, 2007 at 2:44 pm | Report this commentHundreds of thousands of Brussels-based workers commuting every day into a very small capital city is all you need to obtain one of the most biaised economic stats in the world of European affairs.
Who could decently defend the idea that Bruxelles-Capitale is one of the wealthiest places in Europe, when whole chunks of the city look more like Belgrade (literally) than Milan, London or even any mid-sized city in Europe?
N.V.
As far as lies, damned lies and statistics go, GDP per capita is a very poor measure of actual wealth. It needs to be contrasted to cost. London is not only the richest, but also the most expensive region in the EU.
A quick look at the pdf you link to shows that the national purchasing power parity rate is used to address the issue of cost, rather than the local. This is ridiculous as London, especially the city, is by far more expensive than the rest of the UK. On the other hand Berlin, for instance, is quite a bit cheaper than the average in Germany. So the methodology used is just plain misleading.
I expect that Brussels, like Berlin, is quite a good place to live in if you can get a job. One of the best places in the world. The problem is a mismatch between the available (or: potentially profitable) jobs and the skill set of the population. This is a consequence of seeking highly productive and profitable businesses, which makes these cities very competitive and innovative.
The problem of high unemployment that has emerged can be addressed in at least three different ways.
1: Neo-liberal policy: Change the incentive structure so people will do shitty work rather than sitting at home or doing black labour, and so that companies can make an easier profit out of workers with low productivity.
2: Social Policy (or: human resource management): Re-educate the population through a mix of courses and subsidized labour (learning by doing).
3: Industrial Policy. Get businesses to the city - preferably as start-ups - that offer jobs which match the existing skill base. In part, this means a shift of the focus, away from heavily knowledge-based branches.
Mixtures are possible, of course.
Parts of the second policy and the entire third policy are off limits according to the existing economic dogma. This doesn’t mean that they’re necessarily less effective, though.
(The weblinks in this diary are listed as mailtos, you might want to change that)
Posted by: Nanne | February 24th, 2007 at 9:08 pm | Report this commentChris, you need to get your own blog
Posted by: Nanne | February 24th, 2007 at 9:11 pm | Report this commentNanne posted the following:
“Get businesses to the city - preferably as start-ups - that offer jobs which match the existing skill base. In part, this means a shift of the focus, away from heavily knowledge-based branches.”
I think the Irish experience can offer a lesson. Instead of concentrating everything in or around Dublin (though it sure looks that way sometimes), the Irish government, and specifically the Industrial Development Authority, have pursued a two-tiered policy of increasing educational investment in other cities and regions by establishing and funding various technical institutes, and then helping companies to start-up around these local clusters of knowledge and skills. Such a strategy could help reduce the Brussels commute as pointed out by N.V. and go some way to relieving Belgian’s high structural unemployment.
Posted by: Anthony Imbrogno | February 25th, 2007 at 2:48 pm | Report this comment