Abstract
In the recent years, an economic crisis has appeared in most economies. It affected the labor market situation. This article refers to the changes in the labor markets of the Visegrad Group countries. The analysis concerns the relations between the economic crisis, the level and structure of unemployment (taking into account the situation of women and young people as the groups strongly exposed to unemployment), and the level and structure of expenditures within the labor market policy. The article is based on the data published by Eurostat, using the tools of descriptive statistics, and statistical indexes, in particular. The research period covers the years 2007-2012, which is dictated by the availability of comparable statistical data. An analysis of the data indicates that the economic crisis increased the economic activity of the population, which contributed to an increase in unemployment. There is no discrimination against women in the labor market, but there has been a serious increase in unemployment among young people. With the increase in unemployment, the expenditures on the total labor market policy have increased, as have those on passive labor market policies and labor market service. Expenditures on active labor market policies (ALMPs) grow relatively more slowly, which may be especially evident in the case of expenditure on training.
Highlights
The level of unemployment and its structure mainly depend on the economic situation
With higher levels of unemployment, one may access the additional resources for labor market policy activated by the state in order to avoid turning this situation into a phenomenon of long-term unemployment
The statistical data analysis conducted in this paper allows us to draw the following conclusions: 1. There was a trend to increase the professional activity of the population, in the Visegrad Group countries
Summary
The level of unemployment and its structure mainly depend on the economic situation. A period of an economic crisis is characterized by a reduction of labor demand and a rising level of unemployment, whereas a period of economic recovery entails the opposite phenomenon. Labor market reactions are dependent on many factors, the most important of which seem to be the level of economic development and structure of the economy (the structure of employment by the sectors). To avoid these sources of differentiated labor market situations, the subject of the analysis in this article is the countries of the so-called Visegrad Group. These countries may be treated as operating at a similar level of economic development and are characterized by a similar structure of employment. To verify the hypothesis above, an analysis of the data related to the situation in the labor market, published by Eurostat for the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia in the years 2007–2012, has been carried out
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