Documents economic recession 3 785 results

"This book primarily explores the welfare-policy responses to the Great Recession, reform trajectories that swept across Europe over the last decade, with a final chapter that focuses on Covid-19 welfare management. The 2008 crash marked a critical stress test for European welfare states with dramatic repercussions, including a massive surge in unemployment, a widening in wage and income disparities, and rising poverty. Hikes in fiscal deficits and public debt, required to pre-empt an economic meltdown, forced policymakers to make painful cuts in welfare services to shore up public finances, thereby jeopardizing welfare support for vulnerable groups. The overall scope of welfare-policy responses is heterogeneous, disparate, and uneven. In some cases, the response to the Great Recession was accompanied by deep social conflicts, while in others unpopular crisis-management measures received broad consent from opposition parties, trade unions, and employer organizations. Alongside serious retrenchments, there have been assertive attempts to rebuild social programmes and institutions, to accommodate policy repertoires-not merely domestically but also at the EU level-to the new realities of the knowledge economy and an ageing society. Overall, the long 2010s showed that the future of work and welfare is in our hands: it is perfectly possible to shape this future in such a way as to provide inclusive social security, achieve high employment, advance and maintain human capabilities across the life-course, and fight poverty and inequality."

"This article investigates how cross-border mobility in the European shipbuilding industry affected the employment security of workers on standard and non-standard contracts in sending and receiving countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. It draws on qualitative findings from Germany, Italy, Norway, Poland and Romania, where shipbuilding production is integrated into transnational networks, leading to high cross-border mobility. Despite restrictions and a reduction of shipbuilding activities, the east-west labour mobility continued during the pandemic contributing to employment security in the east and addressing labour shortages in the west. The findings show that the type of employment contract, national employment protections and workers' mobility status (e.g. posted or self-initiated) influence workers' vulnerability. Specifically, the mobile workers with the most secure employment were also better protected by government measures than those in less secure employment during the pandemic, resulting in hierarchised groups of cross-border labour. Workers engaging in circular migration across Europe were the least protected."

"In the current context of economic and social crisis, our study aims to determine whether labour law protection should be granted only to employees or whether other categories of workers should also be protected. As a part of the research project, ‘Which securities for (which) workers in time of crisis?', we introduce some clarifications in relation to the second part of the question (‘which workers'?), considering, in particular, the intermediate category of economically dependent workers in different European States. However, there is a certain degree of uncertainty surrounding the definition of economically dependent work and confusion as regards the designation of the phenomenon and its overlap with the problem of false self-employed workers. Some States have legal concepts of an economically dependent worker, while in many others it is a phenomenon that remains under discussion."

"Terms such as 'Social Europe' and 'European Social Model' have long resided in the political and regulatory lexicon of European integration. But in recent years, and in spite of the adoption of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the EU social profile has entered a profound period of crisis. The ECJ judgments of Viking and Laval exemplify the unresolved tension between the EU's strong market imperatives and its fragile social aspirations while the ongoing economic crisis, while the various 'bail out' packages are producing a constant retrenchment of social rights. The status quo is one in which workers appear to shoulder most of the risks attendant on making and executing arrangements for the doing of work. Chapters in this book advocate a reversal of this trend in favour of fair mutualization, so as to disperse these risks and share them more equitably between employers, the state, and society at large."

"This critical working paper looks at the series of political choices, circumstances and windows of opportunity that have enabled one particular vision of the model of EU monetary union to gain acceptance. In the context of this model, political union is not considered an accessible way to manage the crisis, for the rescue of the euro is regarded as feasible only in a more competitive economy.
The social dimension, accordingly, becomes the adjustment variable. In this regard, the statements made by the President of the European Central Bank announcing the death of the European Social Model, are merely the anticipation of a reality that is the outcome of a political choice, based on a set of economic prescriptions and which takes for granted the impossibility of attaining true political union."

"This report looks at the problems young people have getting a job in Italy, and the particularly poor employment and working conditions of those who do manage to get one. It is not a recent problem in Italy, but the crisis has made matters worse according to the figures collected by the report authors, researchers at the Italian Institute of Economic and Social Research (IRES). The participation rate of Italians aged 15-24 has fallen by 10% between 2000 and 2010, dropping to below 30% since 2008. This compares with an EU average for the same age group of more than 40%.
"The youngest workers have borne more of the brunt of the crisis even when in stable employment", note the authors. The jobs available to young people are all insecure: agency work, fixed-term contracts, too low-paid to achieve financial independence, etc. The report includes the findings from a survey of 1,000 workers aged 15 to 34, principally on their working conditions. The plight of younger workers is not one to be envied: higher work accident rates, unsocial hours, excessively fast work paces, low job discretion, etc. It comes as no surprise therefore to find that a third of Italy's youth would be willing to emigrate for a better life. While the problem cuts across all categories of young workers (graduates/unskilled, white/blue collar, etc.), young people from the lowest socioeconomic groups seem more permanently beset by insecurity than those from more well-to-do backgrounds."

"Depuis deux ans, les États membres de l'Union européenne, et en particulier ceux de la zone euro, sont confrontés à une crise économique qui, précédée d'une crise bancaire et financière en 2008, provoque un accroissement quasi généralisé des déficits budgétaires et des dettes publiques.

Tout au long de l'année 2011 et du premier semestre de 2012, l'Europe a mis en place de multiples mesures de sauvetage. La principale d'entre elles consiste en un ensemble de règles, de procédures et d'institutions appelé « nouvelle gouvernance économique européenne ». Selon ses concepteurs, ce dispositif vise à renforcer la stabilité de la zone euro par l'instauration de nouveaux mécanismes de surveillance, de sanction et de coordination, et peut-être à l'avenir de solidarité.

Le premier chapitre du présent Courrier hebdomadaire est consacré à l'analyse des faiblesses de l'Union économique et monétaire telle qu'elle a été conçue par le Traité de Maastricht en 1992. Le deuxième chapitre examine les raisons de la mise en place de la nouvelle gouvernance économique européenne et étudie sa mise en œuvre progressive : renforcement du Pacte de stabilité et de croissance, élargissement du champ de la surveillance multilatérale, nouveaux traités et nouveaux instruments. Il est accompagné d'une chronologie détaillée des principaux événements qui ont marqué la crise de l'euro, de janvier 2010 à juin 2012. Le troisième chapitre livre diverses réflexions de fond sur l'orientation prise par cette nouvelle gouvernance, ainsi que sur des options alternatives qui ont été évoquées. Christophe Degryse s'y interroge sur la pertinence du diagnostic posé durant la crise, sur la pertinence des remèdes apportés et sur les implications en termes de politiques sociales et d'enjeux démocratiques."

"While an economy is always 'embedded' in society, the relationship between the two is undergoing profound changes in Europe, resulting in widespread instability which is emphasised by the current crisis. This book analyzes these changes, and in particular pressures of intensifying international competition, globalization and financialization within Europe.
Combining the perspectives of economic sociology, political economy and political science, the expert contributors offer an in-depth, multidisciplinary insight to the functioning of a number of institutional arenas around which European economies and societies are organized. Areas explored include the state and public policy at European national and regional level, the welfare state, industrial relations systems, education systems and the family.
This challenging and thought provoking book will be of great interest to a wide-ranging audience across a number of disciplines, including European studies, political science, comparative political economy, economic sociology, industrial relations and social policy."