Five years after the financial crisis ended, the US and eurozone are still dealing with high unemployment and slow economic growth. Long-term unemployment remains a major US political and social issue, and the eurozone has an 11.6 per cent unemployment rate.
To combat the headwinds, the Federal Reserve has increased its balance sheet to five times its level of late-2008, and the European Central Bank in June decided to set a negative deposit rate to stimulate bank lending. ECB president Mario Draghi has indicated his willingness to implement some form of quantitative easing.
These monetary measures are not likely to bear fruit. Only measures to encourage market forces to increase the demand for labour can succeed in moving the global economy towards full employment.