In case you're actually curious to learn about thoughts in this direction, see the paper "Did the crisis permanently scar the
Portuguese labour market?
Evidence from a Markov-switching
Beveridge curve analysis" at https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/scpwps/ecbwp2043.en.pdf
From the introduction:
> For many years, a key distinguishing feature of the Portuguese labour market has been its persistently high employment and relatively low unemployment, despite the high level of employment protection ... The crisis has now seemingly brought about an end to this striking feature of the Portuguese labour
market: ... As a result, Portugal now [in 2017] has the third highest unemployment rate among OECD countries; ...
And the findings:
> The results show that the sharp outward shift in the Portuguese Beveridge curve was to a large extent driven by cyclical factors. However, it was compounded by some structural factors, namely, the relatively high level of employment protection together with the relatively high minimum wage ratio and the relatively generous unemployment benefit system.
This is really interesting. If I understand correctly, it's drawing conclusions about the unemployment rate since the financial crisis.
I'm under the impression that even before the financial crisis, Portugal was considered one of the "poorer" European economies, which is what I was getting at. But I see now the comment I was responding to may have been concerned with Portugal's _recovery_ since 2008.
From the introduction:
> For many years, a key distinguishing feature of the Portuguese labour market has been its persistently high employment and relatively low unemployment, despite the high level of employment protection ... The crisis has now seemingly brought about an end to this striking feature of the Portuguese labour market: ... As a result, Portugal now [in 2017] has the third highest unemployment rate among OECD countries; ...
And the findings:
> The results show that the sharp outward shift in the Portuguese Beveridge curve was to a large extent driven by cyclical factors. However, it was compounded by some structural factors, namely, the relatively high level of employment protection together with the relatively high minimum wage ratio and the relatively generous unemployment benefit system.