Europeans’ low work ethic is causing the eurozone’s influence to decline, says hedge-fund founder and thought leader Ray Dalio.
Key Details
- Billionaire investor Ray Dalio says the eurozone countries’ influence is fading away due to Europeans not wanting to work.
- The eurozone is a group of 19 member states of the European Union and is currently the third largest power in the world—but Dalio says it is facing a gradual decline.
- “Its weaknesses are its people’s lower-than-average work ethic and low self-sufficiency and its relatively poor allocation of labor and capital,” Dalio says.
- Dalio warns that if Europeans don’t start working the zone will lose all of its influence.
Why it’s news
Ray Dalio, founder of world’s largest hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, says the eurozone is losing the influence it once had over the world due to Europeans not wanting to work.
He took to Twitter to share a computer generation of the zone’s power. The generation titled “Eurozone Power: Total and Per Capita” was based on education, military, innovation, strength and trade, but all of those metrics are facing a gradual decline.
While those metrics are declining Dalio stated that the eurozone remains strong in global trading, capital markets, and finances.
Europeans overall have a low drive to work. On the scale of how much time Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD)
nation’s spend at work—the EU falls low.
Many other studies show the lack of drive for Europeans to work and how it continues to decline.
Work productivity for the nation has been a topic of discussion for banks and policy makers for a while, and now it is officially starting to affect the zone as a whole.
The European Commission expects the zone’s economy to fall in the last quarter of the year, according to Fortune writer Chloe Taylor.