Ich habe gerade diesen Artikel gelesen: https://www.brusselstimes.com/belgium/1603074/why-belgians-work-the-fewest-hours-in-europe
Es sagt das: "Brüssel und Wallonia haben die niedrigsten Beschäftigungsquoten in Europa."
Dies klingt jedoch extrem negativ, wenn man bedenkt, wie reich Belgien ist. Ist es wirklich so schlimm? Kennt jemand präzisere und jüngste Zahlen? Danke!
Low employment in Belgium – is it really that bad?
byu/absurdherowaw inbelgium
Von absurdherowaw
12 Kommentare
These are the most recent numbers. We are a relatively rich country because the people who work need to give back roughly 50% of their income to provide our welfare state + we have a pretty competitive economy in services.
Then I’m not mentioning the taxes on the assets you gather. In general, we are still competitive and we pay a lot of taxes.
if you want to see numbers more in detail: [https://statbel.fgov.be/en/themes/work-training/labour-market/employment-and-unemployment](https://statbel.fgov.be/en/themes/work-training/labour-market/employment-and-unemployment)
if you look at government finances, especially the regional ones, you might notice Belgium has been spending more than it earns for ages. And that is not something we can afford to keep doing. Like for instance, Brussels as a region has a debt of about 15 billion. That is more than double its yearly income. That severely limits anything positive the region can do, because it is literally throwing away money to pay interests on its debts.
They said „Brussels and Wallonia have the lowest employment rates in Europe, **along with some other regions**“. It doesn’t mean it’s fine but still it’s strange to delete that part of the sentence.
Also the same journal, a few months ago published [this other article saying Brussels had the highest employment rate of the history of the Region, with 67 percent of person between 20 and 64 years old employed.](https://www.brusselstimes.com/1348659/brussels-employment-rate-at-highest-level-ever) That’s coming from around 61 percent in 2021.
According to [to this European data, it would put it at the same level as the whole of Italy.](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Employment_-_annual_statistics) In a way that would mean we do better in Brussels that that Italy does since there is usually more unemployment in cities, and Brussels is only a city.
It’s very easy to lie with statistics. Can be bad data or methodology. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of small businesses dont report exactly how many hours they work because it’s either done with cash/off the books or they just dont bother with honest reporting. Maybe they include part time workers, people on maternity/paternity or sick leave, unemployed people etc. It’s not like we have more holidays than France… we also dont have the same industry as other countries. We have lots of consultancies for example, which pay a flat wage with a 38h weekly contract and expect you to work way more, and the hours you get can be absorbed into holidays or taken as hours off… those extra hours are not counted in the former case.
Wallonia and Brussels are living beyond their means. That is what it means.
Brussels is not only virtually bankrupt, but also factually.
Which parameter you are looking at to say „Belgium is rich“?
There are a lot of poor people in Brussels and Wallonia, 10k homeless in Brussels, beggars everywhere and trash spread across the city.
If it is to be rich, I don’t even want what poor is (Charlorei?).
Fact is, rich people live in the countryside near nature. Poor people live in cities in Belgium, especially Brussels.
yes, it’s even worse for [immigrants ](https://belgski.github.io/Belgium/claims/migration/) . It is not really the employment rate, but rather the participation rate that is low
The simple fact is that our government is in a deficit and if more people worked, that deficit would shrink.
Yup is is really that bad and it will just getting worse and worse in the future. That’s my opinion because the government can do what they want,not mutch things help. It’s not a problem from yesterday, it’s already a years ongoing.
Define „rich“. If your household has a debt that surpasses your annual income would you call yourself rich?
If you are in debt and still throw money around to hang with the rich kids, you shit higher than your head is we say here.