first labour market slack is exceptionally large in many countries and thus outside of most recent experience another difficulty in applying historical evidence to the current recovery period is the very different composition that it takes in different countries whereas massive labour shedding led to large increases of unemployment and inactivity in some countries an unusually high share of the total decline of labour input has been achieved through hours reductions in a larger number of countries cf the need for vigorous employment growth is evident for the former group of countries