Unemployment Rates In Europe Research Articles

Journalists in media companies: Proposals for an anthropology of their work

The crisis triggered by the effects of Covid-19 has created a new context for work among journalists. High unemployment rates in Europe, particularly worrying among the youth, are yet another reason to think about working conditions in the media sector, which has been considered crucial to the health of democratic societies. The practice of communication professions has privileged activity, production, and fast publication, which now takes place in multiple media, mobile and social platforms. According to different research, distrust in media content seems to be growing. Is there a relationship between these two problems? Are there ways in line with the anthropology of work that could help to regain trust? The academic literature has studied the crisis of trust in institutions and has also explored the work of journalists. However, there are not many studies that bridge the structural crisis of trust in the media and the working conditions of professionals. This article seeks to contribute to alleviating this gap. It proposes three possible lines of argument to develop the anthropological keys to the work of journalists: a recovery of time, making research the working method; a primacy of audiences; and a need to stress the personal growth of professionals.

Mitigating Long-term Unemployment in Europe

Abstract While unemployment rates in Europe declined after the global financial crisis until 2018/2019, the incidence of long-term unemployment, the share of people who have been unemployed for >1 year to the total unemployed, remained high. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic could aggravate the long-term unemployment. This paper explores the factors associated with long-term unemployment in European countries using a panel of 25 European countries over the period 2000–2018. We find that skill mismatches, labor market matching efficiency, and labor market policies are associated with the incidence of long-term unemployment. Among the different types of active labor market policies, training and startup incentives are found to be effective in reducing long-term unemployment.

Mitigating Long-term Unemployment in Europe

While unemployment rates in Europe declined after the global financial crisis until 2018/19, the incidence of long-term unemployment, the share of people who have been unemployed for more than one year to the total unemployed, remained high. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic could aggravate the long-term unemployment. This paper explores factors associated with long-term unemployment in European countries, using panel of 25 European countries over the period 2000–18. We find that skill mismatches, labor market matching efficiency, and labor market policies are associated with the incidence of long-term unemployment. Among different types of active labor market policies, training and start-up incentives are found to be effective in reducing long-term unemployment.

Mitigating Long-Term Unemployment in Europe

While unemployment rates in Europe declined after the global financial crisis until 2018/19, the incidence of long-term unemployment, the share of people who have been unemployed for more than one year to the total unemployed, remained high. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic could aggravate the long-term unemployment. This paper explores factors associated with long-term unemployment in European countries, using panel of 25 European countries over the period 2000-18. We find that skill mismatches, labor market matching efficiency, and labor market policies are associated with the incidence of long-term unemployment. Among different types of active labor market policies, training and start-up incentives are found to be effective in reducing long-term unemployment.

Impact of public expenditure in labour market policies and other selected factors on youth unemployment

This study investigates the impact of selected macroeconomic, demographic, institutional and educational determinants on youth unemployment rates in Europe, with special attention to effects of Active Labour Market Policies on unemployment dynamics. Dynamic panel data estimates have been done with the Generalised Method of Moments on data from 27 E.U. Members States plus Norway (2005–2014). The results indicate significant impact of the main macroeconomic variables on youth unemployment rates, total unemployment rates and shares of young people (15–24 y.o.) neither employed nor in education or training. Other variables show various levels of significance, including variables which describe labour market policies (L.M.P.s). In all estimations, public expenditure in L.M.P.s as a percentage of gross domestic product has statistically significant impact on unemployment rates, with positive coefficients. However, opposite effects have been estimated when using the number of participants in L.M.P.s and public expenditure in L.M.P.s per unemployed person, which suggests that L.M.P.s better target the general unemployed population than the vulnerable group of the unemployed youth.

European unemployment revisited: Shocks, institutions, integration

This paper painstakingly restores a vintage empirical model that relates unemployment to shocks and institutions, and proceeds to run it on recent data featuring dramatic shocks and controversial institutional change. The original specification fails to fit these data. Theoretical insights and the results of suitably modified regressions suggest that the capital flow and reforms implications of international economic integration are crucial for interpreting twists and turns of unemployment rates in Europe and elsewhere.

Polarization or convergence? An analysis of regional unemployment disparities in Europe over time

We analyse the distribution of regional unemployment rates in Europe and its dynamics. Using the standard deviation, non-parametric kernel densities, and stochastic kernels we identify and study two distinct periods: a convergence from 1996 to 2007 and a polarization from 2007 to 2013. We further estimate a multi-level factor model to identify the contributions of continental, country and region-specific fluctuations. We show that the convergence prior to the recent crisis is solely accounted for by country factors, whereas the strong polarization afterwards can be attributed to both country and region-specific fluctuations. In addition, we provide evidence for European unemployment cycles and discuss interesting regional patterns.

Youth unemployment in Europe – business cycle and institutional effects

In the aftermath of the Great Recession 2008/2009 European youth unemployment rose sharply from below 4.2 m in 2007 to more than 5.6 m young people under 25 unemployed in the EU28 countries in 2013. The youth unemployment rate expanded from 15.5 in 2007 to 25.5 in 2013. Beyond the consequences for individuals youth unemployment as a mass phenomenon is potentially menacing the stability of democratic societies. Hence there are good reasons to fight youth unemployment by any means. The paper analyses the specific structure and causes of youth unemployment. Although youth unemployment is also influenced by individual factors like insufficient qualification, we show that country-specific factors - institutions, traditions and characteristic structures - are of high importance in explaining the huge disparities between European countries. Using panel data estimates with specific country and time fixed effects we show that especially the Mediterranean countries responded to the economic downturn in a specific way. However, the high correlation of changes in the youth and adult unemployment rates across countries points to the fact that not only structural factors but also business cycle effects are important for explaining the sharp increase in the youth unemployment rate in Europe. The rise in joblessness is in fact closely related to macroeconomic slackness. Therefore, we argue that a two-handed approach combining institutional improvements with growth stimulating measures is needed to overcome the problem.

Eurosclerosis and international business cycles

This paper incorporates search frictions with endogenous job creation and destruction into a two country dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model to explain two macroeconomic facts. First, since the 1980s, European unemployment rates have risen substantially above USA levels. Second, the European business cycle has lagged the USA business cycle during the period of the Great Moderation. In the model, more generous unemployment benefits and greater employment protection (manifested as firing costs) can endogenously generate higher unemployment. These same policies will also create labor market frictions which slow the response of the economy to business cycle conditions.

Focus: Can unions be effective for young workers?

INTERNATIONAL union rights Page 5 Volume 20 Issue 3 2013 dicted, according to ILO estimates. In 2012, the ILO finds that youth unemployment rates outside the major industrialised economies were highest in the Middle East and North Africa, at 28.3 percent and 23.7 percent, respectively. Rates were considerably lower in East Asia, where the level was 9.5 percent, and in South Asia, where the rate was 9.3 percent. Explaining the divergences, the ILO observes that South Asia and Sub‐Saharan Africa present relatively low regional youth unemployment rates. This, the ILO’s youth report finds, is linked to high levels of poverty, which means that in countries without strong and effective social security systems, working is simply a necessity for many young people. To give a sense of perspective the ILO cites global youth unemployment at 73.4 million in 2013, an increase of 3.5 million since 2007. Precarious and atypical work Difficulties in finding work, lengthy periods of unemployment in between brief work contracts, and extreme precariousness during periods of employment mean that even for young people who are officially ‘in-work’ the situation can be ‘unbearable’ and can ‘lead to resignation in many cases’, according to a recent paper published by the German social-democratic research institute Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (‘FES’). In several countries young workers are contemplating migration as a potential escape from poor employment prospects at home. A 2013 report by the National Youth Council of Ireland showed that 300,000 people (around 6.5 percent of the population) have emigrated since 2008, the majority being young people. A report from the International Trade Union Confederation (‘ITUC’) titled ‘The Social Crisis – the Millions of Young People Unemployed’, notes that ‘many young people are no longer able to build a life plan, a vision of the future’ and ‘represent a totally disproportionate share of precarious workers’. Some may be able to extend periods of education, tempering the situation to some extent, while others are forced to live with their parents, even for a number of years, where this is possible. These employment patterns , it should be noted, are now extending into young workers’ early 30s, with potentially very significant implications for their entire working lives. EU measures to address youth unemployment have not all been as helpful in their characterisation of the situation as some would have wished. The FES paper ‘the European Union tackling youth unemployment in times of crisis’, by Paz Martín Martín, observes that all EU measures have so far focused on ‘employability’ and ‘activation’ of young people, suggesting that responsibility for these staggering unemployment levels is in T he current crisis detonated into popular consciousness in 2008 as news of a series of banking collapses began to translate into rising unemployment figures. From 2005-8 the unemployment rate in Europe had been falling and had reached a low point of 16 million (6.7 percent). In 2008 this trajectory changed dramatically , and over the next five years unemployment rocketed to 26.5 million (both figures cover the 28 countries now in the European Union (‘EU’), so the large jump is not accounted for by the entry of new EU Member States). Among these more than 26 million are very many young workers, some of whom have now been unable to find any secure or appropriate employment since leaving education several years previously. Of all sections of society, young people may be the most affected by the economic crisis. The European statistics agency Eurostat reports a population of some 57.5 million persons aged 1524 years across the 28 countries of the EU (the EU 28) in 2012. Of these 18.8 million were employed, and 5.6 million were unemployed (forming together a labour force of 24.4 million persons). A further 33 million were ‘economically inactive’, which in many cases means that they are still participating in education programmes and thus might not necessarily be appropriately regarded as either ‘employed’ or ‘unemployed’. Again according to Eurostat, the unemployment rate in Greece is now running at 55.3 percent and it has reached 53.2 percent in Spain. With more than half of all young people...

HAVE EUROPEAN UNEMPLOYMENT RATES CONVERGED?

Based on an approach of time series, in the present work we analyzed the behaviour of the unemployment rate for a sample of thirteen European countries during the period 1984Q1 to 2005Q1. Starting from stochastic and β-convergence concepts of Carlino and Mills (1993) and using the methodology of Tomljanovich and Vogelsang (2002) it has been observed that there has taken place a convergence process in the majority of European unemployment rates. This process has become more intense since 1993.

PROTOCOL: The effect of benefit exhaustion on unemployment

PROTOCOL: The effect of benefit exhaustion on unemployment

Expected Inflation, Sunspots Equilibria and Persistent Unemployment Fluctuations

We propose and estimate a model where unemployment fluctuations result from self-fulfilling changes in expected inflation (sunspot shocks) affecting nominal wage bargaining. Since the estimated parameters fall near the locus of Hopf bifurcations, country-specific expected inflation shocks can replicate the strong persistence and heterogeneity observed in European unemployment rates. They also generate positive comovements in macroeconomic variables and a large relative volatility of consumption. All these features, hardly accounted for by standard sunspot-driven models, are explained here by the fact that liquidity constrained workers, facing earnings uncertainty in the context of imperfect unemployment insurance, choose to consume their current income.

Common smooth transition trend-stationarity in European unemployment

This paper analyzes the hypothesis of hysteresis in Europe. The results are favorable to smooth transition trend-stationarity in European unemployment rates around highly persistent structural changes. In addition, we find evidence of a common force that generates this nonlinear behavior.

The Labour Market in Macedonia: A Labour Demand Analysis

Abstract. This paper examines the labour market in Macedonia, a country with the highest unemployment rate in Europe. I describe labour market institutions and policies during the transition. I also examine job creation and job destruction using firm‐level data and I estimate short‐term and long‐term elasticities of the labour demand. The analysis shows that there are regulatory barriers to the labour market flexibility. I can also conclude that the privatization of socially owned enterprises has failed to promote job creation. Nevertheless, labour market problems seem to stem from factors other than substantial sluggishness of firms in adjusting employment to variations in wages.

Introduction

In 1980, Poles were the first to jump the communist ship and organize outside of the Communist Party, forming a ten-million strong alternative labor union, Solidarity. When the Communist government banned the Union in 1981, Poles refused to dissolve it. They went underground forming Solidarity-sponsored schools, theaters, newspapers, and political groups. In so doing, Solidarity activists created an alternative civil society that emerged nearly intact in 1989 when Poles were the first to throw off Soviet-backed communism. Yet now, in this land of self-liberation and freedom, the highly conservative Law and Justice party, led by Lech and Jaroslaw Kaczyński, won the 2005 elections on a pro-Catholic, antigay, antiabortion, anticommunist, and xenophobic platform. Now the Kaczyński government is hounding government officials, professors, lawyers, doctors, managers, journalists, judges, and bank managers out of jobs for refusing to declare whether or not they collaborated with the communist security forces. Poles, who during the Solidarność era reached out in solidarity to activists around the world, are now redefining Polish citizenship as singularly Polish and Catholic. Founded as a worker's movement, Solidarity has overseen the diminution of the Polish working class, the emasculation of unions, the downward spiral of purchasing power, and one of the highest unemployment rates in Europe.

Two Questions about European Unemployment

A general equilibrium search model makes layoff costs affect the aggregate unemployment rate in ways that depend on equilibrium proportions of frictional and structural unemployment that in turn depend on the generosity of government unemployment benefits and skill losses among newly displaced workers. The model explains how, before the 1970s, lower flows into unemployment gave Europe lower unemployment rates than the United States and also how, after 1980, higher durations have kept unemployment rates in Europe persistently higher than in the United States. These outcomes arise from the way Europe's higher firing costs and more generous unemployment compensation make its unemployment rate respond to bigger skill losses among newly displaced workers. Those bigger skill losses also explain why U.S. workers have experienced more earnings volatility since 1980 and why, especially among older workers, hazard rates of gaining employment in Europe now fall sharply with increases in the duration of unemployment.

Demographic and education effects on unemployment in Europe

We analyse the effects of demographic and education changes on unemployment rates in Europe. Using a panel of European countries for the 1975–2002 period - disaggregated by cohort and education - we empirically test the economic effects of the “baby bust” and the “education boom”. We find that structural shifts in the population age structure play an important role and that a significant share of variation in unemployment rates is also attributable to educational changes, the latter being usually neglected in aggregate studies. Results show that demographic and education shocks are qualitatively different for young (adult) workers as well as for more (less) educated people. Changes in the population age structure are positively related to the unemployment rate of young workers, while have no effect on adults. Conversely, changes in the education structure show a negative effect on the unemployment of the more educated. Labour market institutions also influence unemployment rates in different ways. Employment protection for regular workers increases unemployment rates, while temporary employment provisions reduce it. Unemployment benefits are found to have a displacement effect on unemployment, while corporatism of wage bargaining improves employment performance.

On the Effects of Wage Pressure on the Unemployment Rate and Capital Share

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to understand the behaviour of the capital share and the unemployment rate in Europe over the past quarter of a century. We consider a model with monopolistic competition, increasing returns and an imperfect labour market, assuming that the elasticity between capital and labour is less than unity. Previous works have generally assumed constant returns to scale. Our results offer an important conclusion, namely that increased wage pressure will increase the unemployment rate and the capital share even though the latter initially decreases, which fits the stylized facts about the studied economies.

Is there a nonlinear co-movement in the EU countries' unemployment?

This paper analyzes the hypothesis of hysteresis and co-movement among European unemployment rates using unit root and co-trending tests that allow for nonlinearities. The results are favorable to stationarity and common patterns in European unemployment.