The ongoing sectoral shift in the Portuguese economy suggests that unemployment rates should remain high over a protracted period of time. Safeguarding social cohesion is key so we can manage unemployment in line with its structural nature.
In fact, a mechanical exercise conducted in Banco de Portugal shows that an 8 per cent annual growth of external demand up to 2020 would have a cumulative reducing impact of 7 p.p. on the unemployment rate (to around 11 per cent), which means that the solution to our unemployment problem does not lie on the demand side.