Euro zone: The three possible forms of unemployment

We can distinguish three forms of unemployment : Keynesian unemployment, caused by a shortfall in demand; Classical unemployment, caused by an excessively high level of labour costs; Structural unemployment, caused by an insufficient labour force with the required skills. We use different indicators (inflation, capacity utilisation rates, profitability, hiring difficulties, etc.) to try to identify the periods when one or the other of these forms of unemployment have prevailed in the euro zone. Table 1 at the end shows the breakdown of the periods. Since 2017, the euro zone has been in structural unemployment after a long period of Keynesian unemployment (2009-2016).