They don’t have enough workers period. In 1960, most European countries had about 5 working age people per retiree. By 2050, there will be less than 2 workers per retiree in France, and just over 1 in Spain.
Seriously though, workers on what? I find it quite odd to base the value on workers as being a percentage of retirees, that's entirely detached from demand, productivity and opportunity.
"We need more workers to fund the old ones that stopped!" I get the basic logic, but it's stupid.
This is the unexamined premise that keeps on going unexamined. Europe makes less and less each day, growing more and more dependent on China for production (as on the US for security, although Europe seems a little less dependent on Russia for energy now). Automation fills the tedious, low-skill jobs that remain onshore, and the promise of industrialization, digitalization, and now AI is that fewer human workers are needed to sustain equal productivity. Why does the sane world that frets about offshoring and AI gutting employment also need unskilled immigrants to be "moar workers?"
Because all those developments that result in increased productivity get turned into increased profits for individual companies, not in higher wages or reduced hours for workers.
Because things aren't fully automated or offshored, and because governments need a tax base, which won't exist if that money is going to Alphabet-AI-division, or India.
Plus there are still gaps, things which cannot be automated or offshored, and many which will only do so after great effort. Lotta money to be lost there without bodies.
Seriously though, workers on what? I find it quite odd to base the value on workers as being a percentage of retirees, that's entirely detached from demand, productivity and opportunity.
"We need more workers to fund the old ones that stopped!" I get the basic logic, but it's stupid.