Monday 22 April 2013

v Recession - hit Greece faces Fertility Crisis




In a nursery of a private maternity hospital in Athens, three mothers feed their newborns while another three babies nap nearby.
The room has only a few cots, and yet a number lie empty.
Sunk in recession for the past six years and struggling to steer its economy through painful austerity cuts, Greece now faces a fertility crisis as well.
“Benefits have been cut, the cost of living has risen, wages are down and there is great uncertainty,” says Leonidas Papadopoulos, managing director of the Leto hospital and a veteran obstetrician.
“Couples think twice nowadays, not only for a second child but even for their first… It looks like there will be 10,000 fewer births next year,” he adds, citing estimates drawn from state and private studies.
According to state statistics agency Elstat, the fertility rate in Greece has fallen from 2.33 children per woman in 1975 to 1.4 in 2011.
The replacement rate, the number of births at which the population remains stable, is 2.07 children.
Papadopoulos also cites a recent study by the University of Athens that found that the rate of miscarriages has doubled to four percent in the last two years.
And births have gone from 118,000 in 2008 to 101,000 last year, he notes.
“At this rate, Greece will be much smaller in a few years,” Papadopoulos says.
The European Union fertility leader is Ireland with 2.05 births in 2012, followed by France with 2.01 children.
In one of its projected scenarios, Elstat sees the population of Greece dropping to 9.7 million in 2050 from 11.29 million in 2012.
A jobless rate of over 27 percent—and over 30 percent among women—compounds the difficulty facing couples today.
“Policies to protect maternity are easier to apply in good (economic) periods,” says a high-ranking state welfare official who declined to be named.
“In the private sector, mothers very frequently do not make use of their rights because unemployment is very high,” the official added.
In Greece’s more easy-going civil service, staff can take up to 14 months in fully paid maternity leave—and have been known to obtain extra time for difficult pregnancies.
In the private sector, mothers can on paper claim up to 15 months of non-consecutive maternity leave—four of them unpaid—not including holidays.
In reality, however, employees rarely push to obtain full maternity leave for fear of losing their job, officials note.
The Greek ombudsman’s office highlights the problem in its latest report for 2012.
“Women who are pregnant or just back from maternity leave, run higher risks of…unemployment and precarious employment,” the report said.
“In many cases they accept a violation of their labor rights to avoid losing their job,” it noted, adding that having children was also likely to adversely affect a woman’s pay and career prospects within a company.
“We even have extreme examples of couples who have been trying to have a child for years, undergo costly treatment and then want to have an abortion because the husband just lost his job,” Papadopoulos said.
– The ‘money is so little that it cannot even cover bread and milk for the children’ –
Paradoxically, the axe has fallen the hardest on large families.
Until last year, mothers could claim a lump sum of 2,000 euros ($2,618) upon the birth of their third child, and the same amount for each child thereafter.
Then there were additional child support benefits of up to 4,700 euros a year, depending on income and the number of children, which were accessible to even moderately wealthy families.
These were eliminated in 2012 and replaced with a new, means-tested system.
From January 1, families are theoretically eligible for child support benefits of up to 5,880 euros — but they would need to have six children and be on the verge of starvation to claim it.
Spain is a similar example of a once-generous welfare gone for good — a 2,500-euro handout per baby was eliminated in 2011.
In Germany, parents receive 184 euros per month for their first two children. For the third child, the state pays 190 euros and for additional children 215 euros.
In Greece, even for couples who are not in dire straits, supporting a large family is tough.
“We cannot meet the needs of our three children and our parents are having to contribute from their pensions,” says Georgia Kitsaki, an unemployed hotel worker from Thessaloniki.
Georgia and her husband Nikos, who is also unemployed after a labour accident, received a monthly jobless benefit of 470 euros until December, and child benefit of 276 euros. The latter has since been suspended.


Recession-hit Greece faces fertility crisis
Inquirer.net
Pedestrians walk by a homeless man in Thessaloniki, Greece, Sunday, April 21. 2013. Sunk in recession for the past six years and struggling to steer its economy through painful austerity cuts, Greece now faces a fertility crisis as well. AP PHOTO ...
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Inquirer.net
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UK May Avoid Triple Dip Recession,
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Figures to show state of economy
expressandstar.com
Crucial economic figures will this week reveal if the UK managed to dodge a triple dip recessionamid mounting warnings over the strength of the recovery and the latest downgrade blow. N0343491366540603394A Bank of England governor Mark Carney ...
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Texas explosion: 'He was a cowboy and he died with his boots on'


Texas explosion: 'He was a cowboy and he died with his boots on'
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SAN JACINTO: Put on that cowboy hat
Press-Enterprise (blog)
San Jacinto Councilwoman Crystal Ruiz, second from left, is going to Santa Clarita'sCowboy Festival at Melody Ranch Movie Studio on Sunday, April 21,to learn more about how that region has attracted film production business. The council gets into the...
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Press-Enterprise (blog)
Lou Diamond Phillips and Wyatt McCrea to co-host Western Heritage Awards ...
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With spring comes the excitement of celebrities, writers, Western musicians, directors, producers, actors and photographers who travel to Oklahoma City to accept the prestigious “Wrangler Award” at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum's annual ...
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Annual Cowboy Festival appeals to all senses - The Signal
Santa Clarita Valley Signal
The Melody Ranch Motion Picture Studio is no stranger to crowds of people decked out in boots, spurs or Stetson hats, but plenty of new faces turned out at the studio Saturday to take part in the 20th annual Santa Clarita Cowboy Festival. First-time ...
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Sunday 7 April 2013

Opportunity for SMEs and new start ups like AeroSoft Corp to hire such talented Professionals from IIMs. .



Opportunity for SMEs and new start ups like AeroSoft Corp to hire such talented Professionals from IIMs. .

The Indian Institutes of Management, which sit at the top of the business education totem pole, can normally rely on the power of the IIM Brand to land their wards well-paying jobs year after year. But as this year's placement season looms, some are being forced to do the unthinkable not because of poor quality of Education but just because of Global Recession. more than 65% already got selected by top ventures only about 35% or less are waiting.

I personally visited IIM I on 31 March 2013 and spoke to 40 odd students there. from those  35% who are waiting, but even these students were seems to be much promising. It is an Opportunity for SMEs and new start ups like AeroSoft Corp to hire such talented Professionals.

I found all of them were very humble, down to earth and absolutely no IIM ego.  But looking very promising and Productive for any  SMEs and new start ups.  Its a Win win in the time of Global Recession.

AeroSoft Welcomes following professionals from Indian Institute of Management Indore as Project Manager

Er Aishwarya S [ B E , PGDM IIM - I ]

Er Sushmita Lakra [ B Tech, PGDM IIM - I ]

Er Susmita will be  working with AeroSoft Corp as a Project Manager. She belongs to the ‘City of Joy- Kolkata’ and loves eating delicious food. She is extremely hard working, goal oriented and passionate about everything she does, especially anything related to Information technology. She did her PGDM form IIM Indore in the year 2013 and has completed her B.Tech in IT from West Bengal University of Technology, Kolkata in the year 2011. Susmita has an experience in conducting both primary and secondary market research. She is adept at using analytical  tools that would help Aerosoft Corp , streamline their operations and generate revenues faster. According to Ministry of Civil Aviation (Aranca Research), the passenger traffic for airlines has been growing since the new millennium due to the increase in disposable income and introduction of low cost aviation. Constant awareness is the pre requisite to drive growth in any industry. So, Susmita Lakra as the project manager at AeroSoft Corp aspires to facilitate the process of Information gathering to satiate the dynamic needs of consumerism and avid readers.