It’s the success stories that worry me

Also known as “the economy that is Germany,” Adam Posen offers a very good analysis:

Since 2003 a falling unemployment rate has been the consequence of the creation of a large number of low-wage and part-time or flexitime jobs, without the benefits and protections afforded earlier postwar generations. Germany now has the highest proportion of low-wage workers relative to the national median income in western Europe. Average wages increased by more than inflation and productivity growth in the past year for the first time after more than a decade of stagnation.

…Germany’s productivity growth has been low compared with its peers. Growth in gross domestic product per hour worked is 25 per cent below the OECD average, whether one goes back to mid-1990s or looks at just the past decade – and whether or not one excludes the bubble years for the US and UK. With these productivity numbers, it is no wonder German business is competing only by reducing relative wages and moving production east.

There is much more here at the FT, the piece is interesting throughout, though I am skeptical of Posen’s claim they could have done much better than they did.