Real Unit Labor Costs in Europe and the US

Graph above show the evolution of Real Unit Labor Costs (RULC) in France (top line) and the US (bottom) from 1970 until 2012. Unit labour costs measure the average cost of labour per unit of output in real terms. If you think the stagnation in the US is bad, note the collapse in France in the 1980s, during the Socialist government of François Mitterrand. Most of the Neoliberal adjustment took place way before the euro per se.