On 5 March 2026, Roxana Mînzatu, Vice-President of the European Commission and Commissioner for Social Rights and Skills, Quality Jobs and Preparedness, made the following statement during a European Commission press conference: “Closing the gender gap in employment could mean an extra 10% in EU GDP per capita and creating more than 10 million jobs…
Women flee to Germany in search of better prospects. Once in Germany, a lot of them fall into unemployment, unlike many of their male counterparts. But why do refugee women find it so much harder to get a job than refugee men? During our fact-check titled “After about five years, approximately half of refugees are…
In an interview with the German newspaper Handelsblatt, that was published on 7 October 2020 on the website of the Düsseldorfer media outlet, Daniel Terzenbach, board member of the Federal Employment Agency (Bundesagentur für Arbeit), claimed, that after about five years, approximately half of refugees are employed. The claim turns out to be mostly true.…
On 4 November 2020, Zdravko Počivalšek, Slovenian Minister of Economic Development and Technology, tweeted: “The assessments of the international financial institutions show that the measures taken so far have made it possible to maintain social stability and jobs.” We rate this claim as mostly true. In a tweet from the official account of the Slovenian…
The leader of the Slovenian National Party (SNS), Zmago Jelinčič Plemeniti, stated that there are 400 employees at the Ministry of Culture and that almost 30 years ago there were only around 40. The number of employees claimed during the special session of the Slovenian Parliament Jelinčič’s, is almost two times bigger than the actual…
“This crisis affects women differently than men”. This claim by Dutch politician, writer and former diplomat Petra Stienen who was elected in June 2015 as a member of the Senate of the Netherlands representing social-liberal party D66 is mostly true.
Despite the good intensions of change, Coronavirus seems to highlight the limits of our society. We are in a moment of exceptional crisis, which is often compared to the one of 2008, however as the Covid-19 is an unknown and new disease, its economic and social impact is equally new. If we consider trends in…
Geert Bourgeois, a representative of Flemish nationalist party N-VA in the European Parliament, claims in Flemish newspaper De Standaard (25.01.2020, paywall) that for every billion euros of exports, we create 14.000 new jobs in Europe. This statement comes in response to the trade agreement concluded with Vietnam in 2019. These figures turn out to be…
On Tuesday 31 December, French president Emmanuel Macron gave his speech for the new year on the national TV news. Among his wishes, and retrospective of 2019, he stated that “more than 500,000 jobs were created since May 2017” (the quote is stated at 1.49), this date marking the start of his mandate. So, is…
On the 22nd of October an article appeared in De Standaard, a Belgian newspaper. It quoted the Flemish minister-president Jan Jambon (N-VA) who stated that Brexit already brought 42 companies and 2,000 jobs to Flanders, Belgium. Where did they get that specific number? Jambon made that comment in the Flemish Parliament earlier that day in…