As can be seen in this graph, the Spanish construction workers had to face a sharp contraction of the share of employment in that sector, from 13% of total employment to 5% and find a job in other sectors. The decline is less significant but still relevant in countries which experienced a construction boom. More generally, according to a Banque de France research paper 2, the Beveridge curve has shifted in the euro area and the United States, with more vacancies associated with a similar level of unemployment, pointing at an increase in structural unemployment. These effects of the crisis on human capital would fade away only slowly, with the arrival of new cohorts on the labour market. However, they could be mitigated by active labour market policies, such as an appropriate training policy, which have a very effective and targeted impact on human capital depreciation. 1.2. Second, in Europe, the ECB has significantly loosened monetary policy in recent years even after the limits of conventional monetary policy have been reached. But this has been no ordinary recession. It has also been associated with an acute financial crisis and history has shown that recessions associated with financial crises can have an even longer lasting impact on economic performance. During financial crises, credit constraints can tighten drastically for banks and for firms and households which in turn harms physical capital and labour productivity growth. Financing constraints may lead to increased firm defaults.
7  P. Aghion, P. Askenazy, N. Berman, G. Cette and L. Eymard, 2012. “Credit Constraints And The Cyclicality Of R&D Investment: Evidence From France,” Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(5), pages 1001–1024, October. 8  P. Aghion, D. Hémous and E. Kharroubi, 2014. “Cyclical fiscal policy, credit constraints, and industry growth,” Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 41–58. 9  A. Bergeaud and G. Cette and R. Lecat, 2016. “The role of production factor quality and technology diffusion in 20th century productivity growth,” Working papers 588, Banque de France. 10  C. Reinhart and K.S. Rogoff. 2010. “Growth in a Time of Debt.” American Economic Review, 100(2): 573–78; Lane, Philip R. 2012. “The European Sovereign Debt Crisis.” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 26(3): 49–68. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  impediments to the flow of resources, in particular in the labour market and in the way credit was allocated between sectors, hence revealing that a malfunctioning of the financial sector can reinforce structural weaknesses. 11 In some cases both were present at the same time. Of the uttermost importance were the structural changes targeting an improvement in the monitoring and the resilience of our financial system. Arguably the financial crisis partly resulted from excess risk taking and overinvestment in low productivity sectors. 12 The Basel 3 framework worldwide and the Single Supervisory Mechanism in the euro-zone provide new supervisory and prudential tools to mitigate these risks in the future.