ArniePie From Belgium, joined Aug 2005, 1265 posts, RR: 1 Reply 3, posted (7 years 8 months 4 weeks 1 day 18 hours ago) and read 1256 times:
Quoting 767Lover (Thread starter): The article states that the Netherlands was the worst-performing economy of 25 EU countries in Q1 2005.
In terms of growth, not in terms of absolute GDP or any other factor.
It is not easy to maintain an equal growth as , lets say Hungary, when you're already X-times richer.
Quoting 767Lover (Thread starter): It also says the unemployment rate went up 5 percent in the last few years.
Same thing here, they already had 1 of the lowest unemployment numbers in the EU, so 5% up in this statistic is not as bad as +5% over here (Belgium).
Quoting Pope (Reply 1): Ridiculously one-side labor legislation that makes it just about impossible to fire anyone for anything is what's going on with the Dutch economy.
Has absolutely nothing to do with it.
As a matter of fact Holland has no history with tough labor unions as France,Italy,Belgium or a lot of other EU members have.
The real problems in Holland originate more from the structure of their Economy; in the 80's and 90's they put a big emphasis on their role as passing through nation , super transport haven for the EU , and they neglected the new developments ,trends.
Where they certainly missed the boat a bit is the knowledge based economy (Finland, Switzerland,Ireland) which makes for a better return per employee, the transport sector ,which is so big in Holland,is a notoriously low profit, lowly paid sector.
This by no means is an indication for long term turmoil because they have a very strong multi faceted economy and has proven itself to be very adaptable in the past.
So they are probably not in for a long time recession but more of a period of zero growth and sometimes crisis while they adapt.
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