Due to a varity of facts, such as lower fertility a social phenomenon called ‘greying of Europe’ is occurring. This is explained further in the following video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHCt6PmSs0k
Fact is that the European working age population will not continue growing in the near future, due to the apparent demographic changes. This has drastic effects on the European Labour market. This is especially severe in northern and western Europe.
It can be said that the European working age population will decrease at different speeds and starting from different times, depending on the given region. Even though there will be diverse levels of starting time and size this concerns all the countries within Europe.
In more than 25% of Europe the population within the working age already stopped to grow.
This is a major threat, as it can be predicted that the reserves of labour will be diminished by 50% in the year 2015. Hence, the rates of activity for people in the working age population have to be heightened. This is an extremely complex matter though.
Besides the positive effect of lowered unemployment rates serious issues arose and will continue to grow, unless matters are taken to prevent them.
How can labour shortages be prevented? What needs to be done to increase the activity rates of the working age population? Besides stating that people should have more children, what reasonable solutions are there?