European Economics > Unemployment hits ten-year high in Germany; France consigning next generation to a lifetime of debt

 

German unemployment hits ten-year high

The country’s economy is facing a third consecutive year without growth

© Getty Images / skynesher

Unemployment in Germany has risen to its highest level in a decade, official figures released on Friday show. The labor report comes as the country’s faltering economy risks contracting for a third consecutive year.

The figures show the number of unemployed individuals topping 3 million in August for the first time since 2015. The month-on-month increase came in at 46,000 to put the tally at 3.02 million in seasonally unadjusted terms, or 6.4% of the population.

Federal Employment Agency chief Andrea Nahles blamed the labor market struggles on Germany’s weak economy. The EU’s largest economy shrank by 0.2% in 2024 after contracting by 0.3% in 2023. This year, following a 0.3% expansion in the first quarter, output fell by 0.3% in Q2 as uncertainty grew over new US tariffs. The International Monetary Fund recently warned that Germany could face a third consecutive year without growth.

Germany’s economic downturn has coincided with Berlin’s decision to halt imports of low-cost Russian energy, which was vital for its industry. European gas prices rose sharply after Russian pipeline deliveries largely stopped and the Nord Stream pipelines were sabotaged later that year. Before the sanctions, Germany sourced 55% of its gas from Russia, but has since shifted to pricier liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports from the US and Qatar.

READ MORE: EU sanctions against Russia don’t work – Bild

Moscow has denounced the Western sanctions as illegal and ineffective, arguing they have instead backfired on the countries that imposed them.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz stated last week that Germany is facing a “structural crisis” rather than temporary “weakness,” and said steering the economy toward growth has proven more difficult than expected. Key industries such as the automotive segment are “no longer truly competitive,” he added.

The country’s automotive sector has shed more than 51,000 jobs just in the past year alone, according to recent data.

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French PM admits debt will devastate next generation

Paris has spiraled into uncontrolled borrowing for the comfort of “boomers,” Francois Bayrou has said

French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou in Paris, France, August 28, 2025. © Getty Images / Adnan Farzat/NurPhoto

France has saddled the younger generations with debts they’ll be paying off their entire lives, French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou has said. Paris continuously borrows in the interest of “boomers” and “certain political parties,” he added.

On Monday, Bayrou said he urged President Emmanuel Macron to reconvene parliament by September 8 for a confidence vote to gauge support for his €43.8 billion ($50.9 billion) austerity measures plan. The prime minister has long sounded the alarm over the country’s spiraling budget deficit, which hit 5.8% of GDP last year – almost double the EU 3% ceiling.

The primary victims of the government debt will be the “youngest French people,” Bayrou said in an interview with French broadcaster TF1 on Wednesday.

“They’re the victims; they’re the ones who will have to pay the debt for the rest of their lives,” he said, adding that Paris is trying to convince them that more borrowing is needed.

READ MORE: French debt ballooning by €5,000 a second – PM

“All this for the comfort of certain political parties and for the comfort of the so-called boomers.”

His proposals to battle France’s $3.98 billion government debt have included scrapping public holidays, slashing public sector jobs, as well as welfare and pensions cuts. The program has been criticized by left-wing parties, who have accused Paris of prioritizing military spending over social welfare.

Macron has promised to increase France’s military budget to €64 billion by 2027, citing external threats. Paris has warned of a potential war scenario within the next five years, naming Russia as one of the principal threats – claims which Moscow has dismissed.

READ MORE: Macron wants ‘boots on the ground’ in Ukraine

Bayrou’s proposed budget has not been well received by the French public, polls suggest. While most French people agree with the prime minister’s alarmism about the national debt, 76% believe his budget will not help, and 82% see it as socially unfair, according to an Elabe survey from Tuesday.

Around 81% want a new prime minister to be elected, and 67% called for Macron’s resignation, according to Elabe’s poll. Nearly three-quarters say they want Bayrou to fail in the vote on September 8, which is to be his ninth no-confidence motion.

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Canadian Convulsions > More bad news as Canada's unemployment rate hits 7 year high.

 

If you were to look at the economy of Canada over the past 10 years of Trudeau's Liberal government, you would have to come to the conclusion that the government was working to destroy the Canadian economy as all the indicators point downward while America's economy thrives. What could possibly be responsible for such a divergence if it were not intentional?

Canada’s Unemployment Rate Climbs to 7-Year High

in August, Reaching 6.6 Percent

Canada’s unemployment rate rose to 6.6 percent in August, going up by 0.2 percent since July’s 6.4 percent, Statistics Canada’s labour force survey says.

The rate is at its the highest point since May 2017 apart from the pandemic years, StatCan said.

The summer job market proved to be exceptionally tough for students this year, with the unemployment rate in this group climbing to the highest level seen since the summer of 2012, excluding the pandemic summer of 2020, the newly released survey found.

The unemployment rate for students returning to school full-time in the fall was 16.7 percent on average between May and August, up nearly 4 percent from last year’s rate of 12.9 percent, StatCan said.

The rate increased for students of all ages but was highest among the 15 to 16 age group, rising from 22.1 percent in 2023 to 27 percent this year. Students aged 17 to 19 experienced an unemployment rate of 17.7 percent, marking an increase from the 12.5 percent in 2023.

Older students—those aged 20 to 24—had an unemployment rate of 11.1 percent, up from 8.3 percent last summer.

Overall, the unemployment rate reached 1.5 million people in August, a 22.9 percent increase from the same month the prior year, according to StatCan figures.

The survey found that of those who were unemployed in July, 16.7 percent found work in August, a smaller share than in August 2023.

The Bank of Canada announced its third consecutive interest rate cut of 2024 on Sept. 4, bringing it down from 4.5 percent to 4.25 percent. One of the goals of the cuts is to stimulate the economy and boost the job market, Governor Tiff Macklem has said.

The economy experienced a modest increase of 22,000 jobs last month, failing to keep pace with the rate of population growth.

Employment increased last month in the educational services, health care, social assistance and finance, insurance, real estate, rental, and leasing sectors but fell in the professional, scientific and technical services, utilities, and natural resources categories.

Despite reduced hiring rates, many workers have benefited from swift wage growth, enabling some to regain the purchasing power they lost during the pandemic, StatCan found. Average hourly wages rose 5 percent last month over August of 2023, reaching $35.16.

But still alarmingly lower than America's Purchasing Power.

The Canadian Press contributed to this report.

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Swedes Vote Climate Policy Biggest Waste of Tax Payer Money in 2019

A Little Levity, but then...

Environmental activist Greta Thunberg, of Sweden, addresses the Climate Action Summit in the United Nations General Assembly, at U.N. headquarters, Monday, Sept. 23, 2019.

(AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)AP Photo/Jason DeCrow

CHRIS TOMLINSON

The Swedish public has voted that climate change spending has been the biggest waste of taxpayer money in 2019, according to a poll by the Swedish Taxpayers’ Association.

The Taxpayers’ Association released the results of their annual wasteful spending poll earlier this week, declaring that climate policy had been the biggest waste of money, largely due to the fact that despite the spending, emissions in Sweden had actually slightly increased.

In 2014, the Swedish national government spent 5.2 billion Swedish krona (£419 million/$547 million), a number that has more than doubled to 12.6 billion krona (£1 billion/$1.3 billion) for the planned 2020 budget.

“The government has more than doubled the appropriations for climate policy, but despite this, emissions no longer decrease. In 2018, emissions even increased. That is why climate policy has been voted the worst waste of the year,” Johan Gustafsson, Waste Ombudsman at the Taxpayers’ Association, said.

Breitbart London

@BreitbartLondon

Sweden Looks to Ban Sale of New Petrol and Diesel Cars in Ten Years https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/12/22/sweden-looks-to-ban-sale-of-new-petrol-and-diesel-cars-in-ten-years/ …

The Swedish government, along with the Centre Party and the Liberals have announced they will be looking to ban the sale of new cars that use fossil fuels in the next ten years. 

“Too much tax money is wasted without benefit to those who pay. It is no less important that money has an effect when it is invested in something that is important — rather the opposite,” he added.

In second place in the poll was a project from the artists’ commission that saw over a million krona donated to a project focused on art for earthworms and fungi.

Mats Caldeborg and wife Katrin Zackrisson Caldeborg were behind the project and told newspaper Expressen: “Art for birds, bumblebees, beetles, worms, and fungi is a project that wants to turn upside down in our habitual way of seeing and understanding the world. Here, nature’s smaller inhabitants are not those depicted, but themselves, in their own right, recipients of the art.”

The wasteful spending poll results come as many Swedish municipal governments face financial hardship or even bankruptcy due to a lack of money to support recently arrived migrants who have largely remained out of the labour force.

An estimated 90 per cent of migrants who came to the country during the height of the 2015 migrant crisis and received permanent residency are unemployed.

America - On a Fast Track to Destruction

What did you think of Mark Burns prayer at the RNC? Was it alright with you? Or were you shocked by it? I was shocked by it myself for three reasons:

1) His naming the person who may well be the next President of the United States as the enemy;
2) His prayer for unity which did not include half of the 'United' States
3) His attitude of telling God what He should do, since it is God Who chooses presidents, it appears Burns is letting Him know who the right person is.

1) America cannot survive another 8 years of this kind of attitude where the President is considered the enemy who should be obstructed at every turn. The air in the U.S. is toxic with hatred, downright explosive, and Congress and the Senate are completely responsible for creating it. If you can't handle losing an election then you ought not to be in politics.
2) see 1)
3) A Christian who is not working at submitting everything to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, is a Christian who is off track and wasting God's time and their own lives. 

The Bible says God selects who will be Kings and Presidents. This was never more obvious than in the last election which was swayed by Hurricane Sandy. Hurricanes are an 'act of God' in judicial and insurance circles, and Sandy was certainly that.

Yet many Christians reviled Obama not realizing that they were complaining about God. Read the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and find out what happens to complainers and revilers; it's not pretty.

The problem is, you reject the notion that God appointed Obama as President because he is not what you consider to be godly. 

1) What makes you think God wants a godly president? If you actually read your Bibles you would find that God often put the most ungodly people in charge of the Israelites in order to push their declining morality to the bottom so that He could cause them to look up again. You are not looking up, yet, America!

2) You want America to be great again! I'm not clear on what that means. 
Does it mean you want to spend trillions more dollars on a military that cost more than most of the rest of the world's militaries combined? 
Does it mean you want to put more boots on the ground in Syria and Iraq? Do you have any idea what Bush's war on Iraq cost?
Does it mean you want to put America back to work? Unemployment is at 5.5%! It has been below that twice, only very briefly, since 1970. America is back to work, as many as want to.
Does it mean you want to repeal Obamacare? Are you happier if millions of people have no health care at all and millions more go bankrupt if they get sick? Is that a Christian attitude? 

Have you read where Jesus tells us to feed the sick, clothe the naked, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, visit the sick and imprisoned? It appears not because I don't see that attitude in American Christians, certainly not those who are politically active.

You put your faith in your guns! You suspect every move by liberals to be a sinister plot, but never examine the way conservatives are manipulating Christian voters. You have made Christians to be reviled thereby making witnessing a hundred times harder.

America can't possibly be great again when fear and hatred motivate Christians. Get back to God, and there may yet be hope.

A Christian Minister’s Rewrite of the

RNC’s “Christian” Prayer

by Mark Sandlin 


Copyright: actionsports / 123RF Stock Photo

There’s been a whole lot of discussion and (rightful) condemning of the opening statement and prayer from Pastor Mark Burns at the Republican National Convention.

To be clear, I’ve played my part in the condemning.

For reference, here is the opening statement and prayer:


Of particular concern is that statement, “…our enemy is not other Republicans – but is Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.””

It is particularly concerning that this is being presented as a Christian prayer when the the reality of Christianity is this: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” – Jesus (John 13:34 ESV)

But, I think it will be much more useful and enlightening to provide and alternative statement and prayer based on the one from Pastor Burns.

So, I did:

Hello! I’m Pastor Mark Sandlin from the great state of North Carolina! I’m going to pray and I’m going to give the benediction. And you know why? I suppose it’s because we insist on elevating one religious perspective above another even when the U.S. Constitution suggest we should do otherwise. But, it is important that we stand united – not Republicans, not Democrats, not Independents. It’s important we stand united as citizens of this nation.

So, I humbly invite you, regardless of your political or religious perspective, to join me in this prayer. Good and gracious God, we are thankful for those willing to dedicate themselves to leading this nation. May they be led by wisdom and concern for all citizens. May their decisions serve to bring this nation together rather than further divide it. After all, we are the UNITED States of America, not the Republican or Democratic States of America.

May those elected receive the protection they deserve so that they may remain safe in the face of violence or challenge. May the next President of the United States lead with peace, love, wisdom, and compassion.
Amen.