Abstract
The economic crisis that followed the financial crisis that began in the United States of America in 2008 quickly spread to the whole world, leaving structural problems in several countries unveiled, particularly in those that, due to successive deficits and high external indebtedness, were in a more fragile situation. In the Portuguese case, external assistance was needed, made available in exchange for structural reforms and the abrupt, and severe reduction in public expenditure. The applied austerity had repercussions throughout society, but the public sector felt the weight of the used measures concretely, with health services being no exception. The shock waves caused by public expenditure containment policies were particularly felt in the Azores, an ultra peripheral region marked by geographical discontinuity. These are significant asymmetries at various levels from island to island and across several sectors. The public sector is the primary employer. This paper focuses on understanding if the Portuguese Economic and Financial Assistance Program, implemented between 2011 and 2014, affected the employability and dynamics of the labour market of new graduate nurses in the Autonomous Region of the Azores. This quantitative study used descriptive, inferential, and correlation statistics to establish relations with a statistical value between the sample's employability dimensions and the Portuguese Economic and Financial Assistance Program. From the analysis carried out, the study revealed that the restrictions imposed due to the external assistance program led to an increase in precariousness among new graduate nurses and, among other conclusions, a strong contraction in the capacity of hiring nurses by the public health services. As a limitation to the study, there is the need to emphasise that data on unemployment reflected the reality when the questionnaire was applied (May 2019), and the fact that the study did not explore the reasons underlying the unemployment rate found among the participants (although residual).
Highlights
Economic recessions are a relatively recurrent phenomenon.Following the 2008 financial crisis in the United States of America, world economies experienced a period of economic instability, which impacted health systems and health outcomes (Leão et al, 2018)
Regarding participants' distribution by the periods considered for nursing degree's completion concerning the Portuguese Economic and Financial Assistance Program, it was very balanced, in which 36.2% completing the degree in nursing before the beginning of the Program, 30.7% did it during the Program's implementation, and 33.1% after the end of the Assistance Program
From the results presented so far, it is possible to extract that some variables associated with employability and the labour market in the case of nurses were, negatively impacted as a result of the Portuguese Economic and Financial Assistance Program
Summary
Economic recessions are a relatively recurrent phenomenon.Following the 2008 financial crisis in the United States of America, world economies experienced a period of economic instability, which impacted health systems and health outcomes (Leão et al, 2018). Between 2009 and 2014, Portugal was subject to one of the most severe debt crises in its history, which led, in May 2011, to the Portuguese Economic and Financial Assistance Program This is in agreement between the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund (usually referred in the literature as “Troika”) – in exchange to a 78 billion euros loan referred to as financial rescue package or bailout programme. The islands of São Miguel, Terceira, and Faial concentrated 137856, 56437, and 14994 inhabitants, respectively, representing 86.2% of the entire Azorean population It is an aged region with a demographic ageing index of 97.2, a condition that places immense pressure on the health service. In 2019, the Azores registered the entry of around 971794 non-residents, 512822 of which foreigners, a condition that requires the archipelago health service to strengthen its ability to respond against the increase in demand that derives from the growth in this non-resident population
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