Is the Mediterranean separating or gathering peoples?

Although measures introduced by the mediterranean governments to cut unemployment rates are useful, joblessness level still high in the region.

In his last report entitled ”The Mediterranean Area Amid Unemployment, Emigration and New Opportunities for Economic Development”, the Italian national research center “Istituto di Studi sulle Società del Mediterraneo” (CNR’s), describes the labor market situation in both shores of the Mediterranean. The findings of this study is alarming as unemployment levels, particularly for youth and women still high.

In the light of collected data, the document analyses important phenomenons across the Mediterranean basin, with regard to unuployement: the lasting economic crisis, deep demographic transformations, high youth unemployment, the ‘brain drain’, emigration from countries in southern Europe and a high level of migration inflows. In general, two trends emerged from this evaluation: In the North countries, unemployment is due to “market friction and stagnant Economys“, while in the southern ones, where Economys have grown in recent years despite crises, it is due to some “demographic parameters“.

The biggest surprise of this report is that youth unuployement (15-25) in the north shores countries seems to matter more than in south countries. In 2015, four countries of the region had youth unemployment over 45%: Bosnia-Herzegovina (66.9%), Libya (50%), Spain (49.4%) and Greece (49.2%). ”In all Mediterranean countries, youths still have greater difficulty to get access to the labor market,” said Salvatore Capasso, director of the CNR’s.

Furthermore, The draft also highlighted the need for the Mediterranean countries to joint vision in order to keep struggling against such an issue. ”multilateralism is an obligation and not a choice, since all the issues are cross-border ones,” said Enrico Granara, coordinator for multilateral affairs in the Euro-Mediterranean area of the Italian foreign ministry. Commenting on this draft, Algerian ambassador to Italy Abdelhamid Senouci Bereksi noted on his part that Integration of area countries ‘‘is important, and for Algeria it is a priority’.

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