Janine Leschke

How Do Institutions Affect the Labour Market Adjustment to the Economic Crisis in Different EU Countries

The economic crisis which began in most European countries in mid-2008 has had severe effects on labour markets. Although no country has escaped the crisis, the extent of output losses and the number of jobs lost, as well as the resulting rise in unemployment, vary considerably between countries. In order to shed light on this issue, this paper examines empirically how the current economic crisis has affected the different European economies in terms of the impact on output, and the knock-on effects, influenced by the specific institutional frameworks, on employment and unemployment.On the basis of comparable quarterly Eurostat data the differences between countries in terms of the way that the loss of output is translated into falls in working hours and head-count employment and rises in unemployment are analysed. A range of institutional factors expected to influence the transmission from output to employment and unemployment is examined for a selected group of four countries (Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark and Spain).

Five Characteristics of Youth Unemployment in Europe: Flexibility, Education, Migration, Family Legacies, and EU Policy

Current levels of youth unemployment need to be understood in the context of increased labor market flexibility, an expansion of higher education, youth migration, and family legacies of long-term unemployment. Compared with previous recessions, European-wide policies and investments have significantly increased with attempts to support national policies. By mapping these developments and debates, we illustrate the different factors shaping the future of European labor markets. We argue that understanding youth unemployment requires a holistic approach that combines an analysis of changes in the economic sphere around labor market flexibility, skills attainment, and employer demand, as well as understanding the impact of family legacies affecting increasingly polarized trajectories for young people today. The success of EU policy initiatives and investments will be shaped by the ability of national actors to implement these effectively.

Following the ‘Organising Model’ of British Unions? Organising Non-Standard Workers in Germany and the Netherlands

Over the last three decades trade unions in almost all European countries have been losing members. In particular non-standard workers (part-time employed, temporary employed and own- account self-employed) are currently less likely than those on standard contracts to be organised in unions. The paper, which is based on a literature review, has a two-fold purpose. A first objective is to provide a survey of the initiatives developed by trade unions in Germany, the Netherlands and the UK for organising non-standard workers. A second objective is to assess whether, and to what extent, the Dutch and German unions are influenced by British union practices for recruiting new members and among them non-standard workers.

Has the Economic Crisis Contributed to More Segmentation in Labour Market and Welfare Outcomes

This paper analyses whether developments on the labour market and in the welfare system during the economic crisis can be seen as perpetuating the trend towards labour market segmentation or whether the crisis may actually have contributed to containing some of the divisions forged in recent decades. The emphasis is placed on (involuntary) part-time and temporary employment. With regard to labour market developments, the author demonstrates a further segmentation during the crisis, in particular for youth and people with low educational levels who have been disproportionately affected by unemployment. Due to data deficiencies, it is difficult to judge conclusively whether the crisis has contributed to more or to less segmentation in welfare coverage. In fact, there seems to be a division between countries in this regard and the deliberate opening up of unemployment schemes in several countries to new groups of workers during the crisis can clearly be seen as a positive trend contrasting with developments over recent decades.

‘More and better jobs’: is quality of work still an issue – and was it ever?

Quality of work is a core element of the European social model. In this article we analyse the role and instruments of EU actors in this policy area in order to discover the extent to which it has been institutionalized since the mid-1990s. We first demonstrate that quality of work has to be understood as a multi-dimensional concept, before analysing the respective roles of and interactions between the Council, the Commission, the European Parliament and the social partners. Both the definition of the subject as a policy problem and the construction of a comprehensive indicator-based monitoring tool represent necessary, albeit not sufficient, steps to promote the quality dimension of work. The article is based on document and secondary literature analysis as well as expert interviews.

Job Quality in the Crisis – An Update of the Job Quality Index (JQI)

This paper is an update of the synthetic job quality index (JQI) for the EU27 countries which has been created in 2008 (see ETUI Working paper 2008.03 and 2008.07) in an attempt to shed light on the question of how European countries compare with each other and how they are developing over time in terms of job quality. The results point out that the crisis seems to have affected different dimensions of job quality in different ways. Overall, there is a decline in measured job quality and job quality levels in Europe remain highly diverse. There is a clear increase in the use of part-time and fixed-term contracts and/or in the extent to which workers reported that they were working in such jobs involuntarily. Moreover, the numbers of workers who are afraid to lose their job have increased markedly which are clear signs of the declining bargaining power of labour brought on by the crisis.

Intra-EU Labour Migration after Eastern Enlargement and During the Crisis

This paper by senior ETUI researchers Bela Galgoczi and Janine Leschke looks at recent trends in labour migration from new EU member states to the EU15, with a focus on the impact of the crisis on intra-EU labour mobility. Based on data from the European Labour Force Survey, the findings of the study contradict expectations, previously expressed in the literature, according to which deep recessions will result in a slowdown in migration flows. The overall stock of EU10 population in EU15 countries has continued to grow during the crisis, except in Ireland and Spain, two countries that were particularly hard hit by the recession and which, prior to the crisis, exhibited large EU10 migrant inflows.When looking at the direct impact of the crisis, the authors find that, in terms of both employment and unemployment rates, EU10 migrants in the majority of EU15 countries were harder hit by the crisis than were nationals and thus appear to have served, at least partially, as labour market buffers. Paradoxically, however, due to a stronger influx of EU10 migrants to EU15 labour markets during the crisis, their absolute numbers in employment grew, while the employment of nationals generally decreased.Other important issues addressed in the paper include the use of posted workers and (bogus) self-employment to circumvent restrictions on labour mobility imposed by transitional measures, and the mismatch between the skills of EU10 migrants and the jobs they take in the EU15.The findings show strong evidence of over-qualification and the corresponding underutilisation of EU10 migrant workers’ skills. This finding, insofar as it contradicts the expectation that greater labour mobility will automatically contribute to a better functioning of European labour markets, poses a major policy challenge.

Book review symposium: Colin Crouch, Governing Social Risks in Post-Crisis Europe by Janine Leschke

between the two approaches, they can also be viewed as complementary: the rich empirical detail on historical governance approaches and country profiles provides grist for the mill of a more theoretically parsimonious comparative political economy. Ultimately, I suspect, the book will be mainly useful to political economists for its findings regarding outcomes and dilemmas facing particular countries, rather than for the various typologies it produces. Unfortunately, because of its emphasis on embracing empirical diversity, the book does not offer any clear takeaway on the tension between labour flexibility and security. For instance, it confirms that the social democratic approach of the Scandinavian countries is the most successful, but it does not address how such an approach might be scaled up to larger and more ethnically heterogeneous countries. The book seems to open up as many questions as it answers, but perhaps this is the point, and it is up to future research to build on these rich empirical foundations and begin to provide clearer answers to the fundamentally important questions the book raises.

Intra-EU Labor Mobility: A Key Pillar of the EU Architecture Subject to Challenge

Intra-EU labor mobility is often characterized as a major contributor to better functioning European labor markets. Does the evidence of recent cross-border labor mobility support this positive expectation? Does the EU live up to its potential of being a role model by showing that managing free movement of labor in turbulent times is possible? We will show that, in spite of its potential, the challenges facing free movement of labour are tremendous. We address four important aspects: enlargement; transitional measures and their consequences; the crisis and its effects; and the potential offered by free movement for better labor allocation.

Flexible Working Lives and Pension Coverage in Europe with a Focus on Women: Lessons to be Learned by Germany?

In particular due to increasing female employment over the last decades employment has become more flexible in regard to the contract form and we observe more discontinuous employment careers. This paper discusses in how far retirement pension systems in Europe are suited to cover the specific risks of flexible workers. Recent reforms to these systems (e.g. the strengthening of private elements) and their outcomes on flexible workers are also scrutinised. Section 1 discusses the increasing flexibility of working lives, focussing on breaks in paid employment caused by the incompatible demands of family and working life and on atypical forms of employment, in particular part-time and fixed-term employment. Section 2 discusses the problems encountered by persons with flexible labour market histories with regard to retirement pensions, and points to good practices from several European countries. Section 3 analyses retirement pension in Germany in detail based on the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) data which contains life course information. It looks at differences in pension coverage taking account of the full-time and part-time employment history of individuals. It puts specific emphasis on the private ‘Riester pension’ plan which contains incentives for participation of specific labour market groups usually disadvantaged in third pillar private pension schemes.