For the European Central Bank, a softening job market might also kill off its already distant hopes of lifting inflation to its target of just below 2%. And for the many young people in southern Europe still without a job, it could blight their lifetime economic prospects. Between the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008—when the financial crisis truly went global—and the eurozone’s return to economic growth in the second quarter of 2013, the currency area lost 6.7 million jobs, according to the European Union’s statistics agency. By the time the ECB started to offer economic stimulus a little over a year later, in 2014, 2.3 million jobs had been recovered. And over the subsequent five years, a further eight million jobs were created. That means that overall, the eurozone has gained 3.6 million jobs since the beginning of the crisis—an accomplishment for an economic area that has […]