Germany vs. the Rest of Europe

By FLOYD NORRIS
NYT

The German economy has been one of the wonders of the world over the last couple of years. While the rest of Europe staggered, German unemployment fell to the lowest level in decades.

This week the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the club of developed economies around the world, issued a new “Economic Survey of Germany.” The biggest challenge it could find facing the country was finding enough workers.

It recommended steps to encourage more women to work.

“Please accept our sincere congratulations for a well-managed economy,” said Angel Gurría, the O.E.C.D.’s secretary general, in a speech in Berlin. The country’s “growth model has been so successful in navigating through the stormy waters of the crisis.”

The German labor system, with its incentives to move workers to part time rather than lay them off, does appear to have been critical in keeping the country’s unemployment rate from rising more than it did during the credit crisis.

(More here.)