“There Are No More Hotel Beds At All”: Sweden’s Tourism Industry Collapses As Resorts Become Refugee Centers

‘Whichever way we slice the data, the growth in working age population stands out as a key driver of economic growth for most countries. A healthy dependency ratio, a skilled workforce, together with strong institutions and an absence of major resource imbalances is usually the formula for country-level success. But with most DMs weighed down by ageing populations, a key question is this – can people inflows counter challenging demographics? The short answer is yes.’ That’s what Goldman said last autumn as Europe’s refugee crisis began to spiral out of control. We’re not sure if it had occurred to the bank just how large the people flows into Western Europe would end up being because the implication in the excerpted passage above is that the influx of people may actually be a good thing economically speaking if it ameliorates negative demographic shifts.
Of course Goldman may be proven right in the long-run, but in the short-term the mass migration is straining Western Europe’s resources and now looks set to drive up the unemployment rate in Germany.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on 03/31/2016.