EU Labour Research Articles

Leveraging EU non-discrimination law to make the cultural and creative sectors more inclusive of professionals with disabilities: socio-legal perspectives

ABSTRACT Working in the cultural and creative sectors is often seen as an atypical exercise, which differs from mainstream practices in the labour market and operates outside the standard regulatory framework. In this context, the situation of cultural and creative professionals with disabilities and the applicable EU legislation can be overlooked, both in research and in practice. Following a socio-legal approach, this article associates desk-based legal research and empirical research, and considers how the participation of cultural and creative professionals with disabilities could be fostered within the current EU regulatory framework. It identifies gaps and potential in EU cultural policy, disability law and labour law, and, supported by the findings from a qualitative study with EU cultural stakeholders, it discusses the challenges that cultural and creative professionals experience, including those with disabilities. Contributing valuable insights into the participation of persons with disabilities in cultural life, the article argues that the Employment Equality Directive, a pillar of EU labour law and non-discrimination law, can play a key role in making those sectors more inclusive.

On the open borders of information and consultation rights in the EU acquis

Developments in the world of work in the last few years have resulted in an increasing number of working patterns that fall outside the scope of standard employment. In the area of digital work, in particular, more and more economically dependent employee-like workers can be found. The question therefore arises as to whether those who are not typical employees are included in the scope of protection of EU labour law. It is unclear, for example, whether one of the most important labour rights – the right to information and consultation – also applies to non-standard workers (section 1). This article addresses the question of the extent to which EU labour law de lege lata permits or even provides for the inclusion of non-standard employees in the scope of information and consultation rights. To answer this question, relevant legal acts are first analysed. In most cases, it is up to the Member States to regulate the respective scope of application and thus to include non-standard workers (sections 2 and 3). 1 Subsequently, a possible solution for an extension of information and consultation rights for non-standard workers is proposed. The developed risk approach shows that a solution should also be found at Union level for the inclusion of non-standard workers, especially in the case of employee-like workers, as they are often subject to the same risks as employees. However, a broad interpretation of Art. 27 CFR can lead to the conclusion that employee-like workers must be included at both Union and national levels (section 4).

Enforcement of EU Labour Law: Legal foundations and the role of the CJEU

Labour law enforcement is crucial for achieving its social objectives, yet it often faces significant challenges in terms of its capacity to ensure the effective protection of labour rights. In the EU context, effective enforcement of labour law is further complicated by the absence of a sectoral, i.e., labour-specific, approach and the challenges in implementing EU substantive rules, often stipulated in Directives. The article assesses the enforcement landscape of EU labour law and particularly the legal foundations and the CJEU's role. Focusing on key enforcement issues, the analysis highlights how the constitutional right to an effective judicial remedy, as interpreted by the CJEU, and the inclusion of more comprehensive enforcement provisions in EU Directives are mitigating to some extent the existing fragmentation in the EU regulatory landscape, and concludes with considering future directions in EU labour law enforcement.

Assessment of the impact of Long COVID on labour market participation and potential economic effects in the EU

Abstract This paper estimates the economic cost of long COVID through its direct impacts on the labour market. The direct implications of long COVID for affected individuals concern their capacity to work, and their productivity at work. Some individuals might continue to work, but at a lower productivity level, some might reduce their hours worked, including as a result of temporary absences, and some might stop working at all. To the best of our knowledge, so far, no study has explicitly addressed the impact of long COVID on the EU labour market. The present paper provides a tentative assessment using available estimates from surveys, clinical follow-up studies and model simulations of the prevalence of long COVID. This tentative approach yields an estimated negative impact on labour supply of 0.2-0.3% in 2021 and 0.3-0.5% in 2022. In person-equivalents, this means long COVID would have reduced labour supply by 364,000-663,000 in 2021 and by 621,000-1,112,000 in 2022, combining the effect of lower productivity, higher sick leaves, lower hours, and increased unemployment or inactivity. The lower bound of this range is close to a recent estimate put forward for the US (Abraham & Rendell, 2023). Available labour market data suggest a mixed picture when it comes to the impact of long COVID. Overall, the possible role of long COVID in the rising trend in sick leave, disability and activity-limiting health factors, warrants careful monitoring going forward, due to its potential impact on labour supply and labour productivity, and on public finances through increased social benefits, pensions, health care and long-term care expenditure.

Working from home in European countries before and during the COVID-19 pandemic

AbstractWe use data from the representative EU Labour Force Survey for 28 countries and document the levels of working from home in 2011–2022. This period is relevant as it includes the years of the COVID-19 pandemic. We show significant differences in working from home across countries, industries, and occupations. Working from home has increased in several sample countries and almost all industries and occupations in the 2011–2019 period and more significantly in the years affected by the pandemic. Although there is a general decline in working from home in 2022, the prevalence of working from home remains generally well above the pre-pandemic levels. We show that the rise in working from home is associated with lower employment losses during the pandemic years. We also compute a measure of working from home capacity for the sample countries using the observed working from home levels.

The role of collective interest representatives in enforcing EU labour rights

This article explores the role of collective interest representatives (CIR) in the enforcement of EU labour rights. To that end, the article starts with an analysis of the regulation of CIR in other fields of EU law, particularly consumer protection law and non-discrimination law. The analysis follows the approach of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in cases on the legal standing of actors to enforce EU rights, namely, by defining first the protective scope as a matter of Union law itself based on a textual and teleological analysis and, second, the margin of discretion left to Member States to exercise their own procedural autonomy, including the possibility for Member States to determine locus standi according to their own legal systems. The article continues with drawing inspiration from forms of CIR in international and transnational law, particularly the collective complaints procedure of the European Social Charter (ESC), the representation procedure of the International Labour Organization, and the specific instances of the National Contact Points of the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (NCP OECD). The article concludes with an assessment of the acceptance of CIR in the enforcement of (EU) labour rights from a substantive perspective and elaborates on the possible tasks, requirements, and powers of CIR in enforcing EU labour rights.

The value of formally undefined norms in the national legislation approximation to EU labour standards: The case of Ukraine

AbstractThis paper aims to show the importance of a correct understanding of formally undefined EU labour law norms for the successful European integration of Ukraine. The analysis focuses on legal acts of the European Union. The drawbacks of the inequality of approaches to determining the content of norms with evaluative concepts are highlighted, as is the need to use doctrinal recommendations for the application of evaluative provisions with the purpose of preventing the misconception that evaluative concepts can be interpreted as, and to whom, it pleases. This article thus demonstrates the necessity of the analysis of the case-law of the Court of Justice of the EU, which is rich in the interpretation of evaluative concepts and is considered to help clarify the meaning of many terms of labour law, which, due to their undefined formulation, may cause difficulties in implementing them in the legal system of Ukraine.

The geography of European financial centers: 1993–2020

This paper examines the dynamics of employment in the financial sector in the European Union and the United Kingdom since the early 1990s. Using the EU Labor Force Survey at the national (NUTS0), regional (NUTS1), and subregional (NUTS2) levels, we document several stylized facts about the evolution of financial centers. Despite the global financial and sovereign debt crises, the total number of workers in the financial sector has increased from less than 5 million in 1993 to more than 6.5 million in 2020. At the same time, however, the share of employees in the financial sector has decreased from 3.5% to 2.8%. We find large regional differences in the degree of financial specialization, with Luxembourg at the top end (11% of their total workforce), followed by Ireland and the United Kingdom (4%), then France, Germany or Italy (around 3%). We also explore the dynamics of concentration. The main conclusion is that the degree of concentration depends on the scale of measurement employed. We show a contrasting concentration trend: centripetal at the national level and centrifugal at lower levels (regional or sub-regional). Furthermore, newer financial centers showed faster growth. JEL codes: E44, G2, R1

Assessing the Impact of Digital Economy Programs on Alleviating Skill Shortages in the EU Labor Market for Digital Professionals

Assessing the Impact of Digital Economy Programs on Alleviating Skill Shortages in the EU Labor Market for Digital Professionals

Unpacking migration costs: Heterogeneous effects in EU labor markets

I employ a tractable two-country search model of unemployment with endogenous migration decisions for workers and apply the model to the context of the European Union. I find that migration costs for workers are important factors in determining migration, unemployment and wages. Increasing migration costs increase unemployment and decrease migration, wages and welfare. This headline result is disaggregated into heterogeneous effects across workers with different countries of origin and migration histories. Workers who move more times, or for longer spells, are more affected by costs than workers who move less or not at all, though non-migrating workers experience changes to their labor market outcomes due to the externalities imposed by migrant workers. Using EU data, I find that costly migration lowers welfare by 11%–60% relative to free mobility.

New insights on immigration, fiscal policy and unemployment rate in EU countries – A quantile regression approach

Free movement of production factors in the enlarged EU has led to immigration flows from East to West and from South to North with a significant impact on EU labor markets. Fiscal federalism also determined large immigration flows into EU area and affected unemployment rate in the EU countries. The aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of factors such as number of immigrants, tax on profits, social contributions, economic growth and population growth on unemployment rates in EU area using a panel quantile regression and an PMG-ARDL approach as robustness test during 1991–2020. The results show a positive association between population growth and unemployment rate, whereas the remaining exogenous factors are negatively associated with unemployment rate. Still, social contributions are statistically significant only for upper quantiles. The overall impact of social contribution on unemployment rate is positive as per PMG-ARDL estimations. We have also demonstrated that the immigrant flows impact on unemployment rate is very weak. The factors that are exerting the most significance influence on unemployment rate, are economic and population growth, followed by tax on profits. Findings support policy recommendation in EU area in terms of fiscal policy.

Effective enforcement of the EU framework on the posting of workers: Empirical evidence

This article addresses the issue of effective enforcement of EU labour law by looking at the case study of the enforcement of the EU framework on the posting of workers. While recent years have seen a revival of Social Europe in the form of the European Pillar of Social Rights, scholars have also expressed concern over the effectiveness in practice of transnational labour law, and EU labour law in particular. Rasnača (2022) argues that ineffective enforcement creates a ‘justice gap’ between formal rights on paper and access to these rights in practice. One example of an area of EU labour law plagued by enforcement issues is the posting of workers. It is a peculiar type of intra-EU labour mobility, where posted workers, despite often being EU citizens, cannot benefit from the protection afforded by the EU's fundamental principle of the free movement of workers. As the original Directive 96/71/EC on the posting of workers proved manifestly inadequate to safeguard the rights of posted workers, the EU enacted Directive 2014/67 to improve the framework's enforcement. This article offers an evaluation of the Enforcement Directive based on data collected from 29 qualitative interviews. The effectiveness of the Enforcement Directive will be assessed based on the theoretical framework of precarious work. It will be argued that while the Enforcement Directive has contributed to narrowing the justice gap, posted workers continue to be exposed to precarity.

Human resources development: Evaluating perceptions against policy

The objective of sustaining smart, sustainable and cohesive inclusive growth, framed by the European strategy, is in line with the global commitments of the Sustainable Development Goals. Thus, an analysis of people’s attitudes towards social policy and perceptions of professional development in Poland against European development policy is crucial. The nationwide representative sample included 1000 respondents aged 18–64. The study used principal component analysis (PCA), an approach for the multi-response optimisation. The results indicate that respondents’ evaluations are in line with the direction of EU labour policy, where their decisions correspond to the planned priorities oriented towards inclusion and cohesion. The PCA analysis showed that employee competencies and priorities for individual standing can be considered strongly correlated. Competencies were also found to be important for the platform to support systemic development. However, the items included in the analysis that are beyond the scope of the ESF+ , although even correlated, are of lesser importance. The research results allow to expand knowledge on the perception of the development policy facets promoted by the EU, supplemented by themes of leadership or immigrants. The study may become a starting point for inclusive and cohesive working climate research.

Depressive Disorders and EU Labour Resources—The Problem of Lost Productivity in Highly Developed Economies

Depressive Disorders and EU Labour Resources—The Problem of Lost Productivity in Highly Developed Economies

Not Delivering: the UK ‘worker’ concept before the UK Supreme Court in Deliveroo - IWGB v CAC and another [2023] UKSC 43

The present article offers an analysis of some key aspects of the UK Supreme Court (SC) Deliveroo judgment. After a short description of some of the facts and findings of the case, the article argues that the Supreme Court may have actually misconstrued the personal scope of application of Article 11 ECHR and, like the other domestic jurisdictions before, misapplied the law (and the concept of ‘employment relationship’ deployed by the ECtHR) to the facts of this case. While the SC judgment did not expressly elaborate on the domestic ‘worker’ definition contained in s. 296 TULRCA 1992, the article explores the extent to which the Deliveroo saga has incorrectly construed this concept, embracing a very narrow concept of ‘personal work’ that neither the statutory wording itself nor the context in which it was applied arguably support. Finally, the concluding section of this article offers an alternative approach to the legal construction and legal regulation of ‘personal work’, one that is already emerging in other jurisdictions and that should underpin any future reform of the personal scope of application of UK, but also EU labour law - a reform, the article concludes, that is long overdue.

Under what conditions do volunteers escape being qualified as workers?

This contribution looks at the status of volunteers in EU labour law taking into account the criteria of the CJEU's Lawrie-Blum formula. It demonstrates, in light of the jurisprudence of the Court, that some criteria may be problematic and that a purposive approach may provide adequate solutions.

Voluntary work in the Italian experience: the curious case of ‘socially useful workers’

The demarcation of the personal scope of application of EU labour law results from the interplay between national legislation and the CJEU case law. This article analyses the particular case of socially useful workers in the Italian legal system and questions its compliance with EU law. It does so by exploring an intricate legal framework and the relevant interpretation by domestic and European adjudicators.

Precariousness in employment mediated by digital platforms. Evidence from Europe

Is precarity inherent to employment when it is mediated by a digital platform, or does employment precarity have other causes? Using the first wave of the European survey on collaborative economy and employment (COLLEEM, hereinafter), we identify different types of precarity among platform workers by using different operationalizations of this phenomenon. Our results indicate that i) the probability of precarity in on-demand platform work varies according to the type of employment and to certain sociodemographic characteristics; ii) findings are sensitive to the dimension of precarity that we address; and iii) self-employed individuals and those workers who access digital platform jobs as last resort have a more positive perception of working conditions in the sector than salaried employees and those whose reason for entry was not the lack of alternative employment. The study provides guidelines for the effective design of mitigation policies to protect workers in the digitalized EU labour market.

How EU Labor Mobility Shapes Economies: Impacts on Sending and Receiving Nations

This study explores how workers moving within the European Union affect the economies of both the countries they leave and those where they settle. We look at how migration changes economic growth, businesses, and job markets. Migration can be driven by people seeking better economic opportunities or by humanitarian needs, like asylum seekers. It's a key part of how the EU's economy works, with big consequences. We analyze data from key EU countries to build models that show these impacts. Our results show that immigration changes job markets in receiving countries and boosts innovation. Emigration benefits sending countries, mainly through money sent home by workers abroad, despite some drawbacks. This study helps us better understand the complex economic effects of migration within the EU.

The Importance of Soft Skills in the Context of Contemporary Economic Relations and International Student Mobility

Graduates' labour market success increasingly relies on soft skills, best developed through international study experiences. With the changing economic landscape post-COVID-19, adapting to various cultures and environments is valued by employers. This is crucial for university internationalization. The study focuses on how skills from international mobility align with EU labour market needs, particularly for Prague University of Economics and Business's International Relations students. Research included surveys and interviews with employers, yielding recommendations for the Czech educational system and underscoring international mobility's importance for student skills.