Employment in Private and Public Services: A Comparative Analysis of Commercial, Business and Social Services in Spain, France, Italy, Germany, UK and USA

The European Union (EU) present lower average rates of employment and lower average wages than the United States of America, due to the lack of enough economic policies addressed to foster employment in private and public services in all their countries and regions, with a few positive exceptions of some small countries which present a very good behaviour of those variables. Although many EU countries have now a common currency they do not have, for the moment, enough common space for economic policy debates, which is of uppermost importance to advice improvements of decisions of EU Parliament and European Commission policies and to foster employment. EU Politicians, with a few worthy exceptions, usually do not show enough interest in advising by economic researchers and in several cases they prefer to follow erratic measures, introduced by non expert groups in the public debate, which they deem may alleviate the social pressure on politicians in the short term, without little attention to the interrelations among economic variables and the full effects not only in the medium and long term but even in the short term. The main aim of this study is to contribute to foster industrial development, with their positive effects on services, and other measures which might contribute to increase the rates of employment in private and public sectors, as well as real wages, of the European Union as a whole to converge with the levels of the USA.