Stabilising the budget will cost 47,000 jobs

If Belgium strictly adheres to the budget trajectory that the European Union is demanding, some 47,000 jobs will go by the wayside by 2017, according to estimates by the Federal Planning Bureau, reports De Standaard and Het Nieuwsblad.  The Federal Planning Bureau arrived at this figure in June, following a request by the Central Council for the Economy to know the short-term economic cost of government savings in order to eliminate the budget deficit and meet the stability pact agreed with the European Commission.

According to Federal Planning Bureau estimates, around 99,200 new jobs should have been created between 2014 and 2017. But stabilising the budget will mean that nearly half that number – 47,000 jobs – will never see the light of day.

The figures come as bad news for the federal negotiators who are endeavouring to balance the budget and promote jobs creation.

Elsewhere, an estimated 20,000 people in Wallonia now look set to lose their rights to unemployment benefit from January 2015, following a decision by the Di Rupo government to ‘clear out’ of the system all those who have not worked enough to claim full unemployment benefits. Two groups of claimants – part-time workers and those with medical disabilities – will be spared from the measure for the next two years only.