Greece may have bought itself a bit more time with a third bailout, but its economic troubles are set to continue this year, and possibly even get worse.
We asked 20 economists where they thought Greece was headed. Their answers below make for a depressing read.
1. The great shrinking economy. Gross domestic product will contract 0.7 percent in 2015, compared with a 0.8 percent expansion in 2014, according to the median forecast of economists polled by Bloomberg. That would be the seventh annual decline in eight years. Bear in mind that the $200 billion economy has shed a quarter of its size since entering a recession in 2008.
2. More people out of jobs. Unemployment will average 26.3 percent this year, up from an estimate of 25.9 percent in the last survey Bloomberg conducted in April. This spells more pain for youngsters—more than half of whom are out of work—faced with the option of moving back in with their parents or looking for gainful employment elsewhere. Many of the country's best minds have already fled.
3. A balance sheet in tatters. “No pain no gain” has been Germany's mantra for Greece. It's unclear whether this has worked out in practice. The economists we surveyed see the budget deficit reaching the European Union's ceiling, of 3 percent of GDP, up from an earlier estimate of 1.9 percent of GDP. A predicted trade surplus of 0.6 percent of GDP will instead turn into a deficit of 0.7 percent of GDP.
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