Keep in mind that unemployment in France, Belgium and Holland (I'm not very well informed on Germany, only saying here what I've seen directly), unemployment is determined by social status.
In the lower social classes (the equivalent of trailor park in the US I guess), unemployment is somewhere between accepted and encouraged (because it means these people can help eachother out). Amongst the educated, unemployment is a stigma, with possible exceptions for people who are content to beg a life together as "artists" or hermits (these guys are what holds up the science department in universities though). Getting a job and raising a family is what everybody else in the middle and higher classes do.
The problems are threefold.
First, the lower classes don't shrink. Well they shrink by birthrate, but not fast enough.
Second, people are getting forced into the lower classes (the biggest effects are car manufacturer closings, which destroy tens of thousands of jobs in one go). Far more go into them than ever come out. You can bet though, that the government will find a way to not count these people in the joblessness figures. In Belgium, over 10000 ex-Opel employees got to go on pension, some as young as 38. Real unemployment in France and Belgium is just shy of double the official figures, coming up to almost 25%.
Third is immigration. This is not a problem anywhere except the huge cities, but there the problem is endemic. The vast majority of immigrants in Western Europe join the low end of the lower class, where it's almost a crime to hold a job (it'll get you mugged regularly, for one thing).
I don't know what is happening in Germany, but this is what's happening in most of Western Europe, and it won't end well, that's for sure.
In the lower social classes (the equivalent of trailor park in the US I guess), unemployment is somewhere between accepted and encouraged (because it means these people can help eachother out). Amongst the educated, unemployment is a stigma, with possible exceptions for people who are content to beg a life together as "artists" or hermits (these guys are what holds up the science department in universities though). Getting a job and raising a family is what everybody else in the middle and higher classes do.
The problems are threefold. First, the lower classes don't shrink. Well they shrink by birthrate, but not fast enough. Second, people are getting forced into the lower classes (the biggest effects are car manufacturer closings, which destroy tens of thousands of jobs in one go). Far more go into them than ever come out. You can bet though, that the government will find a way to not count these people in the joblessness figures. In Belgium, over 10000 ex-Opel employees got to go on pension, some as young as 38. Real unemployment in France and Belgium is just shy of double the official figures, coming up to almost 25%. Third is immigration. This is not a problem anywhere except the huge cities, but there the problem is endemic. The vast majority of immigrants in Western Europe join the low end of the lower class, where it's almost a crime to hold a job (it'll get you mugged regularly, for one thing).
I don't know what is happening in Germany, but this is what's happening in most of Western Europe, and it won't end well, that's for sure.