Transition Dynamics in European Labour Markets During Crisis and Recovery

an article by Vassilis Monastiriotis and Nikolitsa Lampropoulou (European Institute, London School of Economics, UK) and Corrado Macchiarelli1 (Brunel University London, UK; European Institute, London School of Economics, UK) published in Comparative Economic Studies Volume 61 Issue 2 (June 2019)

Abstract

The crisis has resulted in a substantial rise in unemployment in Europe and a notable divergence in unemployment rates and labour market outcomes post-crisis. In this paper, we offer a detailed examination of the transitional dynamics underpinning changes in employment, unemployment and inactivity across the EU member states during the long period from before the crisis until the recent recovery (2004–2016).

We document substantial differences in transitional dynamics across countries and disparate shifts in these over time.

We also find systematic cross-country differences in the medium- and long-run trajectories of employment and unemployment generated by these dynamics, which can broadly be associated with differences in labour market institutions and models of labour market regulation and industrial relations (varieties of capitalism or production regimes). Applying a counterfactual analysis, we further document how altering the dynamics of labour market transitions may contribute to reducing significantly the levels of unemployment, and cross-country disparities in these, across the EU.

JEL Classification: O52, J62, J88, P51, G01,

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Short-time work in the Great Recession: firm-level evidence from 20 EU countries

an article by Reamonn Lydon (Central Bank of Ireland, Dublin),Thomas Y. Mathä (Banque centrale du Luxembourg) and Stephen Millard (Bank of England, Durham University Business School and Centre for Macroeconomics,
Durham, UK) published in IZA Journal of Labor Policy Volume 8 Article 2 (2019)

Abstract

Using firm-level data from a large-scale European survey among 20 countries, we analyse the determinants of firms using short-time work (STW). We show that firms are more likely to use STW in case of negative demand shocks. We show that STW schemes are more likely to be used by firms with high degrees of firm-specific human capital, high firing costs, and operating in countries with stringent employment protection legislation and a high degree of downward nominal wage rigidity.

STW use is higher in countries with formalised schemes and in countries where these schemes were extended in response to the recent crisis. On the wider economic impact of STW, we show that firms using the schemes are significantly less likely to lay off permanent workers in response to a negative shock, with no impact for temporary workers.

Relating our STW take-up measure in the micro data to aggregate data on employment and output trends, we show that sectors with a high STW take-up exhibit significantly less cyclical variation in employment.

JEL classification: C25, E24, J63, J68

Full text (PDF 29pp)

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Rhetoric and doctrines of policy over- and under-reactions in times of crisis

an article by Moshe Maor (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel) published in Policy & Politics Volume 46 Number 1 (January 2018)

Abstract

This article distinguishes between disproportionate policy response by error (bounded rationality) and disproportionate response by choice, and advances a further distinction of such choices between two disproportionate policy options, namely, rhetoric and doctrine.

Probing the 'plausibility' of these terms, the article presents pertinent illustrations drawn from the military, financial and environmental domains in the US, Britain, Israel, Australia, Singapore and the European Union.

These illustrations show that, during pre-crisis and in-crisis periods, both options can be purposefully designed to signal policymakers’ preference and/or to deliver the disproportionate responses in pursuit of policy goals.

Hazel’s comment
I wish I could give you a link to continue reading on this one. I have definitely marked it to read in the British Library on my next visit.

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Just a peer finding my way in a crisis house

an article by Carlina May Whitmore (Framework Housing Association, Nottingham, UK) published in Mental Health and Social Inclusion Volume 21 Issue 3 (2017)

Abstract

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to share reflections and key learning points from the experience of offering peer support within a crisis house setting.

Design/methodology/approach
A reflective account of experiences of offering one-to-one peer support and the learning that has been taken from these experiences.

Findings
Key reflections centre on the importance of being emotionally honest and supporting personal well-being while offering peer support.

Originality/value
While there is a great deal written about the theory of peer support work, few first persons accounts of peer working have been published. This paper provides important insights into the nature of peer support work.

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A social media and crowdsourcing data mining system for crime prevention during and post-crisis situations

an article by Konstantinos Domdouzis, Babak Akhgar,Simon Andrews, Helen Gibson and Laurence Hirsch (Sheffield Hallam University, UK) published in Journal of Systems and Information Technology Volume 18 Issue 4 (2016)

Abstract

Purpose
A number of crisis situations, such as natural disasters, have affected the planet over the past decade. The outcomes of such disasters are catastrophic for the infrastructures of modern societies. Furthermore, after large disasters, societies come face-to-face with important issues, such as the loss of human lives, people who are missing and the increment of the criminality rate. In many occasions, they seem unprepared to face such issues. This paper aims to present an automated social media and crowdsourcing data mining system for the synchronization of the police and law enforcement agencies for the prevention of criminal activities during and post a large crisis situation.

Design/methodology/approach
The paper realized qualitative research in the form of a review of the literature. This review focuses on the necessity of using social media and crowdsourcing data mining techniques in combination with advanced Web technologies for the purpose of providing solutions to problems related to criminal activities caused during and after a crisis. The paper presents the ATHENA crisis management system, which uses a number of data mining techniques to collect and analyze crisis-related data from social media for the purpose of crime prevention.

Findings
Conclusions are drawn on the significance of social media and crowdsourcing data mining techniques for the resolution of problems related to large crisis situations with emphasis to the ATHENA system.

Originality/value
The paper shows how the integrated use of social media and data mining algorithms can contribute in the resolution of problems that are developed during and after a large crisis.

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Dashed hopes, lives on hold: Single homeless people’s experiences of the Work Programme

a report from CRISIS by Ben Sanders, Lígia Teixeira and Jenna Truder published June 2013

About Crisis

Crisis is the national charity for single homeless people. We are dedicated to ending homelessness by delivering life-changing services and campaigning for change. Our innovative education, employment, housing and well-being services address individual needs and help homeless people to transform their lives. We are determined campaigners, working to prevent people from becoming homeless and advocating solutions informed by research and our direct experience.

Key points

Entering the Work Programme

• Homeless people want to work but often face multiple and complex barriers to finding and staying in employment.
• The Work Programme was designed to help some of the most marginalised people in society. Yet, homeless people on the Programme are being forgotten and excluded, just as they are marginalised in society. All this reinforces feelings of exclusion and marginalisation.
• Many of the homeless people interviewed recalled feeling more positive about their employment prospects and the future when they were referred to the Work Programme. But their initial hopes turned into disappointment as it became apparent that it would not help them to find the right job and transform their lives as originally promised.

Quality of support

• The lack of high level personally tailored support appears to be in part the result of a referral and assessment process that struggles to adequately identify homeless people’s multiple barriers to employment.
• Courses and training intended to improve participants’ opportunities in the job market are often too generic and not specific to the particular needs of participants to be beneficial.
• Advisors’ large caseloads means that appointments are often cut short or interrupted. Feelings of exclusion are reinforced as it can feel appointments are no more than a tick-box exercise.
• High staff turnover as well as high levels of sickness absence also affects the quality of support homeless people receive. According to most of the people we interviewed continuity-of-care is lacking.
• The lack of personally tailored support combined with over-stretched advisors meant participants felt increasingly marginalised to the point at which they had ‘slipped through the net’. Participants’ experiences support growing evidence that those facing greater disadvantages in the labour market are being ‘parked’ by contractors, so that they may focus on people who are more ready to engage with work.

Sanctioning

• Communication problems (e.g. appointment letters not arriving on time) appear to be endemic in all aspects of the Work Programme experience and can result in homeless people being unjustly sanctioned.
• A number of the people interviewed have been sanctioned. Yet, upon learning the news, many had not been told the reason why and had to wait several days before finding out (thus causing further distress and anxiety).

Leaving the Work Programme

• One of the twenty-seven homeless people we interviewed has secured employment but they feel their success was in large part due to the support they received from Crisis and another charity – not because of their participation on the Work Programme.
• The vast majority of the homeless people interviewed are still on the Work Programme and continue to visit their advisors (often irregularly). Most deem these meetings a ‘waste of time’ as their early hopes of finding work that suits their personal circumstances have long been dashed. Many report feeling ‘forgotten’ as if they have ‘slipped through the net’.

Charities are subsidising the Work Programme

• It is left to organisations such as Crisis to provide the personalised one-to-one employment support the Work Programme originally promised. But while third-sector organisations are effectively subsidising the Work Programme with all the pre-employment support that they provide, they receive none of the recognition or reward when a participant does succeed in getting a job.
• The Work Programme contractors are not motivated to risk spending on homeless people and/or those who appear hard to help. But even though these people cost more to help, they are also the ones that deliver a greater return in reduced long-term benefit savings. Therefore, if the Work Programme fails to help unemployed people with complex and multiple needs it will also fail to help reduce the benefit bill in the long-term (one of the Government’s original objectives).

Full text (PDF 24pp)

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Economic place making: policy messages for European cities

an article by Michael Parkinson and Richard Meegan (Liverpool John Moores University, UK) published in Policy Studies Volume 34 Issue 3 (May 2013)

Abstract

The global recession, Eurozone crisis and austerity programmes have had a huge impact upon the European economy and present even greater future threats. They have sharpened debates about policies for recovery and the role that different territories can play in this. In this context in particular they have encouraged a debate about the economic contribution of capital and non-capital cities and whether countries perform better if they concentrate their investment in their capitals or spread investment across a wider set of cities.

Drawing on the findings of a recently completed study of European second-tier cities and a review of the academic and policy literature on local and regional economic development, the paper argues the case for a ‘place-based’ approach to support second-tier cities across Europe.

The key policy messages of this approach for policy-makers at national and European levels are highlighted.

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An analysis of the impact of the 2008–9 recession on the provision of training in the UK

an article by Alan Felstead and Nick Jewson (Cardiff University, UK) and Francis Green (Institute of Education, University of London, UK) published in Work Employment & Society Volume 26 Number 6 (December 2012)

Abstract

This article examines the impact of the 2008–9 recession on training activity in the UK. In international terms, the UK is assumed to have a deregulated training market which is sensitive to changing economic conditions.

However, national datasets and qualitative interviews suggest that, despite the severity of the recession, employers cut training expenditures by a small amount and the impact on training participation rates was minimal.

Contrary to the starting assumption of a deregulated training market, the article shows that employers in the UK do not have a completely free hand and that a combination of market intervention and business requirements obliged most of them to sustain training despite the recession.

These constraints included: compliance with legal requirements, meeting operational needs and satisfying customer demands. However, the recession prompted many employers to find ways of maintaining training coverage to meet these obligations, or as several respondents put it, ‘train smarter’.

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Employment Outlook 2012

an annual publication from OECD

Description

This 30th edition of the OECD Employment Outlook examines the labour market performance of OECD countries as well as the prospects in the short term.

Chapter 1 offers an overview of recent developments, focusing on how marginalised groups (youth, the low skilled, women, the chronically unemployed) have fared during the crisis.

Chapter 2 looks at what structural factors may contribute to labour markets being able to weather economic downturns with limited social costs.

Chapter 3 examines the relationship of labour compensation to domestic output.

Chapter 4 looks at the policy challenges posed by green growth and jobs.

The chapters are complemented by a comprehensive statistical annex.

E-book price £50 (PDF 260pp)
Printed (paperback incl. PDF) price £72

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The failure of European intellectuals?

via Eurozine articles by Jan-Werner Müller

Intellectuals have been accused of failing to restore a European confidence undermined by crisis. Yet calls for legitimating European narratives reflect the logic of nineteenth-century nation building, argues Jan-Werner Müller.
What, then, should Europe’s intellectuals be doing?

Read full article

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Europe and the economic crisis: forms of labour market adjustment and varieties of capitalism

an article by Michel Lallement (Lise-CNRS, CNAM (Paris), France) published in Work Employment & Society Volume 25 Number 4 (December 2011)

Abstract

The economic crisis that beset Europe in 2007 had a considerable impact on employment. Since 2008, unemployment has increased throughout Europe, but adjustment mechanisms affecting the labour market have varied from one country to another. By examining six representative European Union countries from the EU15, this article examines three types of adjustment involving segmentation, working hours and unemployment/underemployment. These adjustment systems, which originate from business strategy and which are partly supported by public policy measures, reflect the persistence of three varieties of capitalism in Europe.

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