These terms have wildly different meanings depending on the context. In my use, structural change refers to revenue-neutral economic rule making. Austerity means deficit reduction.
Making it easier to hire and fire employees is a structural change. Making it cheaper to form a new business, or increasing funding to courts, is also structural change. Removing requirements that e.g. hairdressers be licensed [1] is another. Some of these measures may actually increase deficits, at least in the short term.
[1] http://thefederalist.com/2015/07/15/texas-supreme-court-stri...
https://i.imgur.com/dooDKYT.jpg
If Finland had controlled their own currency, they could have made adjustments based on their unique circumstances. Instead they were left to suffer through a miserable near decade long rolling recession.
Note that in the time period there's also Nokia mobile dying, which impacts the numbers a bit.
As a Southerner, I think we do need structural changes; unfortunately, as you write, these are usually a code for austerity and job precariousness, whereas the changes we need are at the top level, not bottom. In government, major companies and even many small ones. We have hard-working and qualified people, who are wasted by the corrupt and incompetent.
Or just look at the unemployment statistics. https://www.statista.com/statistics/268830/unemployment-rate... The countries outside of northern Europe that are on the Euro or pegged to it have much higher jobless rates than those with their own currency. Czechia, Romania, Poland, Hungary are not pegged while Bulgaria, Lithuania, Estonia are. Similarly outside the EU, Bosnia is pegged and doing poorly, Iceland is not and doing fine even though they were very hard hit by financial crisis.
It's exactly analogous to the way the fixed gold exchange rate was deflationary during the Great Depression and as soon as countries dropped the gold standard they started recovering.