Over half of the European Members of Parliament have outside jobs

Where'd they all go? Now we know...

BRUSSELS – According To Transparency International, 53% of all Eurodeputies (eurodiputados in Spanish; the UK media call them EMPs, I believe) have jobs other than that for which they were elected. The fact was extracted from the statement of interests they are obliged to present to the European Parliament. The NGO calculates that these external jobs mean some €18,000,000 per year, all told, though Transparency International admits it is a difficult figure to validate, given that there are likely to be multiple errors in the EMPs statements.

2014’s most endangered jobs

SPAIN – Herewith is a list of the jobs that have lost their ‘appeal’ for the future, because there was a recruitment drop in them all in the course of this year. Put together by CareerCast (that’s Career Forecast), the list and its accompanying information, says that these are the jobs in most danger of extinction. However, it might be worth remembering that not so long ago, the extinction of newspapers –on paper, that is – was imminent. That hasn’t happened yet and, having worked for some of them, I’m happy to have moved across to the virtual, digital world (though I wouldn’t say the same about the social media, hating Facebook and its inevitability as I do), which is a continuing trend among journalists – even of the grumpy old ones like myself. Fact is, of course, that the diminishing use of paper also affects such employment as that of a lumberjack, or the postman. Anyway, here’s the list: