In addition, it will be important for social partners to continue to act as responsibly as they have done in the recent past. Wage moderation has made an important contribution to the progress observed thus far in job creation and in reducing unemployment. Indeed, employment has grown by 1.8% in 1999 and by over 2% in the first half of 2000.
While many factors were responsible for creating this crisis, there is no doubt that excessive debt and leverage was a major contributor. Leverage, the ability to use debt to build assets as a multiple of a firm’s capital base, is a double-edged sword. Credit is obviously essential to an economy’s growth and prosperity.