European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions

Now all of this has a price tag and it's not a small one.

Eurofound puts the cost of NEETs to European economies at 142 billion euros a year, distributed across foregone taxes, lost productivity and benefits paid out to people who aren't working.

Now if you want to see what happens when a country ignores all of this long enough, Japan is probably the clearest example.

Japan's economy has had a difficult few decades, to put it mildly.

It is all right.

Hello and welcome to this edition of Eurofound Talks.

This time, Eurofound Talks Europe.

A little bit different from our regular episodes, but we're going to be talking about Ireland.

Ireland in the EU, you and as you know, it's Ireland's presidency of the Council of the European Union, which is now underway.

So very happy to have you with us today, Noelle.

Thanks, Mary.

Delighted to be back here in Eurofound once more with you.

And technology has been the ultimate accelerant here.

The column references a fascinating 2017 report from the ILO and Eurofound about the 24-hour economy.

It points out that internet and cloud technology completely decoupled work from the physical office building

Which, if we remember, was initially sold to us as a massive convenience and a huge win for work-life balance, right?

So joining me here in studio is a very important gentleman.

He's the executive director of Eurofound, which is the European foundation for people working and living in Europe.

And his name is Ivalo Kalfin.

He is the executive director there.

Thank you very much, Alan.

It's great to have you.

I know you were once a very senior member of the Bulgarian government, so you've got a new life here with us in Dublin at Eurofound, but we'll talk about that another time.

So this piece of work, you're looking at hybrid working, which is very much embedded now in workplaces all over Europe and particularly here in Ireland as well.