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8 - Transitions in the EU Labour Market before and after the Crisis

The Role of Reforms

from Part II - Macroeconomic Implications of Reforms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 March 2020

By
Corrado Macchiarelli ,
Vassilis Monastiriotis  and
Nikolitsa Lampropoulou
Edited by
Nauro F. Campos ,
Paul De Grauwe  and
Yuemei Ji
Nauro F. Campos
Affiliation:
University College London
Paul De Grauwe
Affiliation:
London School of Economics and Political Science
Yuemei Ji
Affiliation:
University College London
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Summary

This chapter provides an in-depth examination of labour market transitions in the EU over the period 2004–2016, drawing on EU–Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) data. Building on the earlier work of Ward-Warmedinger and Macchiarelli (2014), our analysis offers a detailed insight on how well European economies have recovered from the crisis and whether, and to what extent, their labour markets have returned to their precrisis path. In particular, we analyse labour market transitions across the three key labour market statuses of employment, unemployment and inactivity, providing aggregate break-downs by country, age groups, gender and individual’s level of education based on the EU-LFS. We subsequently use country-specific measures of transition rates and a synthetic index of mobility in order to draw comparisons across countries and over time, as well as examine how country-specific patterns relate to key institutional characteristics, both microeconomic (e.g., employment protection legislation) and macropolitical (e.g., welfare regimes). This offers a granular overview of labour market trends by country and for the EU as a whole, allowing us to draw conclusions about the functioning of labour markets in Europe with regard to their flexibility (speed/extent of transitions and extent of mobility) and how this evolved over time since the crisis.

Keywords

transition probabilitieslabour market mobilitystructural reformsEU countriesLFS data
Type
Chapter
Information
Economic Growth and Structural Reforms in Europe , pp. 239 - 279
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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