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We examine the relationship between ‘flexicurity’ systems, unemployment and well-being outcomes for young people in Europe. A key tenet of the flexicurity approach is that greater flexibility of labour supply supports transitions into employment, trading longer-term employment stability for short-term job instability. However, there is a risk that young people experience greater job insecurity, both objective and subjective, with less stable contracts and more frequent unemployment spells. Our research draws on data from the European Social Survey and uses multi-level models to explore whether and how flexibility-security arrangements moderate the effect of past and present unemployment on the well-being of young people. We distinguish between flexibility-security institutions that foster improved job prospects and those that provide financial security.

By particularly stressing the weaker labour market attachment of workers with non-standard contracts, this article contributes to the rather unexplored issue of mainly non-union-related reasons for leaving trade unions. Germany has been selected as a case study because German unions experienced a steady decline in membership, while at the same time non-standard employment arrangements increased considerably and more so than the European average. Using the German Socio-Economic Panel data, the authors construct a labour market attachment variable capturing different degrees of attachment. Their analysis shows the impact of labour market attachment and firm-level characteristics on union leaving and points especially to important differences across gender.

The 2004/2007 EU enlargements rendered CEE citizens legally equal to EU labour market participants. However, CEE migrants still face ‘racialisation’ and segmentation in North-Western European labour markets. Similar processes might extend to EU-South migrants, giving rise to a division of labour, whereby CEE and EU-South migrants end up in poor-quality, low-pay jobs. We compare the labour market integration of recent intra-EU migrants (EU8, EU2, EU-South, EU-West/EEA) in the UK, Germany and Denmark. Using labour force, microcensus and register data, we model quantitative and qualitative integration through labour force participation and wages. We find no significant differences in labour force participation between nationals and migrants in the UK. Whilst in both Denmark and Germany, the labour force participation of EU-migrants is significantly lower. Notwithstanding differences in migration trends, labour markets and welfare regimes, we find evidence of a division of labour along occupational and industry lines − that translates into wage differences. EU-West/EEA migrants occupy better jobs (even outperforming nationals), followed by EU-South and CEE migrants. In Denmark and Germany, EU8 and EU2 migrants’ wages are lower than those of nationals even after controlling for differences in occupations. These findings suggest that inequalities across the EU are reproduced rather than converging.

This paper analyses whether developments on the labour market and in the welfare system during the economic crisis can be seen as perpetuating the trend towards labour market segmentation or whether the crisis may actually have contributed to containing some of the divisions forged in recent decades. With regard to non-standard workers, developments during the crisis in European countries may appear, at first sight, to have run in opposite directions. While these workers have indeed, in many cases, been more affected by unemployment, serious efforts have been made in several countries to improve their access to unemployment benefits as they are usually among those considerably less likely to qualify for unemployment benefits. Due in part to these improvements, but also as a result of changing characteristics of the pool of unemployed, increasing benefit coverage rates could be observed in many countries. In others, however, trends ran in the opposite direction. Women, and particularly youth, nonetheless remain in an inferior position and, on the EU27 average, the coverage rate of the latter group has actually declined during the first period of the crisis.

This paper examines the use of social networks and its impact on the qualitative labour market integration of young recent EU migrants from Central and Eastern European member states to EU15 countries as well as Switzerland and Norway. The literature points to both positive and negative impacts of social networks on migrant workers’ outcomes. Social networks can facilitate access to employers and information on labour regulation and rights and thereby improve the quantitative and qualitative labour market outcomes of migrant workers. On the other hand, social networks can also contribute to locking migrant workers into sectors and occupations with high shares of migrant workers, so-called niche employment. The latter can lead to suboptimal working conditions including a mismatch of skills and occupation (over-qualification) and lower wages. The impact might be particularly negative for recent migrants from Central and Eastern Europe as previous research on EU cross border labour mobility has shown that they are comparatively high qualified and young. The latter might put them at a double disadvantage given that youth have particular problems in entering (quality) employment as they lack work experience which they could use to signal to employers directly and might therefor have to rely more on social networks of established migrant communities. In contrast to the majority of current research on migrant outcomes and social networks which is based on qualitative research this paper makes use of the 2014 special module on migrants and their descendants of the European Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS). The advantage of the special module is that it includes a subjective measure on over-qualification, one variable of our main interest. Given the existence of migrant employment niches, the standard measures on over-qualification are problematic in that they are usually based on occupational information. Importantly, the special module also contains information on how they found their current job including the use of social networks (relatives, friends or acquaintances), another variable of our main interest. Furthermore, beyond the standard demographics and employment characteristics the data also includes information on language competences and other hurdles preventing a person to have a job corresponding with their qualifications including a lack of recognition of qualifications obtained abroad and discrimination by origin, religion or social background. These are factors are likely to be important regarding the impact of social network support in finding employment on the respective qualitative employment outcomes. Due to data restrictions we have to compile all the post-2004 accession country migrants into one group (EU13). We do however control for different welfare regimes on the country of destination side given that quantitative and qualitative labour market integration differs substantively across welfare regimes. This is due to variation in the economic situation, labour regulation and institutional settings and language and cultural proximity among others which in turn might impact on the importance and role of social networks in labour market outcomes. Our analysis shows that in all European country clusters recent NMS13 migrants more often found their current job through social networks than nationals did. At the same time our findings indicate that when recent NMS13 migrants found their jobs through social networks it is more likely that they are over-qualified for the position and that they fall in a lower earnings class as compared to recent migrants who used other job search methods. In particular, young recent migrants are affected rather often by over-qualification and most of them have rather low earnings. Thus using established social networks for job search might go hand in hand with sub-optimal qualitative employment outcomes. Immigrant occupational and sectoral segmentation might partially explain this outcome. However, the results differ between different welfare regimes and across individual and job characteristics of the NMS13 migrants.

PurposeWhile forms of non‐standard employment (which include part‐time work and temporary employment) have received active promotion in recent years, possible negative effects emerging from these forms of employment have not been high on the agenda. This paper, accordingly, aims to compare workers with non‐standard contracts and those with standard contracts in relation to transitions out of employment into unemployment, inactivity, household/care activities and education/training. Country differences in outcome are expected due to varying regulations of standard and non‐standard employment and different reasons for resorting to forms of non‐standard employment.Design/methodology/approachThe comparison covers four countries, namely Denmark, Germany, the UK and Spain. The segmentation theory is tested by analysing mobility patterns on the basis of the European Community Household Panel data. Event history analysis methods are used. Maximum likelihood multinomial regression models are calculated on the event history data in order to assess competing exits (unemployment, inactivity, household/care and education) between non‐standard and standard workers.FindingsThe risk of temporary workers exiting employment is greatest by far in Spain, but also evident in the other countries: casual employment is even more volatile than fixed‐term employment. Concerning part‐time workers, downward transitions to inactivity and/or household/care are much more frequent than among full‐time workers, and this is true even in Spain and Denmark where part‐time employment is not traditionally used to combine work with family activities. The expectation that there would be no differences in exits to unemployment – insofar as employment protection legislation applies to both full‐time and regular part‐time workers – proves true only for Denmark and Germany.Originality/valueIn contrast to most papers on the segmentation potential of non‐standard employment this paper is comparative. Furthermore, it uses event history methods and places a special focus on potentially employability‐enhancing “sideways transitions” to education/training measures.

This Working Paper describes the main trends in post-enlargement east/west intra-EU labour mobility. It looks at how different population groups, nationals, EU8 and EU21 migrants have been affected by the turbulent processes of opening up national labour markets and subsequently by the crisis.

The continued economic crisis has become a major test for the labour markets of individual member states. Labour mobility within the European Union has the potential to help to reduce labour market pressures and ease economic imbalances. However, a long-term loss of working age population can be detrimental to sending countries. This Forum explores mobility patterns within the European Union and analyses the labour market and welfare effects of labour mobility via case studies of the UK, Poland, Germany and Spain. It also examines a number of its aspects that have important political and institutional relevance for the European Union and its future.

This paper by senior ETUI researchers Bela Galgoczi and Janine Leschke looks at recent trends in labour migration from new EU member states to the EU15, with a focus on the impact of the crisis on intra-EU labour mobility. Based on data from the European Labour Force Survey, the findings of the study contradict expectations, previously expressed in the literature, according to which deep recessions will result in a slowdown in migration flows. The overall stock of EU10 population in EU15 countries has continued to grow during the crisis, except in Ireland and Spain, two countries that were particularly hard hit by the recession and which, prior to the crisis, exhibited large EU10 migrant inflows.When looking at the direct impact of the crisis, the authors find that, in terms of both employment and unemployment rates, EU10 migrants in the majority of EU15 countries were harder hit by the crisis than were nationals and thus appear to have served, at least partially, as labour market buffers. Paradoxically, however, due to a stronger influx of EU10 migrants to EU15 labour markets during the crisis, their absolute numbers in employment grew, while the employment of nationals generally decreased.Other important issues addressed in the paper include the use of posted workers and (bogus) self-employment to circumvent restrictions on labour mobility imposed by transitional measures, and the mismatch between the skills of EU10 migrants and the jobs they take in the EU15.The findings show strong evidence of over-qualification and the corresponding underutilisation of EU10 migrant workers’ skills. This finding, insofar as it contradicts the expectation that greater labour mobility will automatically contribute to a better functioning of European labour markets, poses a major policy challenge.

This paper analyses whether developments on the labour market and in the welfare system during the economic crisis can be seen as perpetuating the trend towards labour market segmentation or whether the crisis may actually have contributed to containing some of the divisions forged in recent decades. The emphasis is placed on (involuntary) part-time and temporary employment. With regard to labour market developments, the author demonstrates a further segmentation during the crisis, in particular for youth and people with low educational levels who have been disproportionately affected by unemployment. Due to data deficiencies, it is difficult to judge conclusively whether the crisis has contributed to more or to less segmentation in welfare coverage. In fact, there seems to be a division between countries in this regard and the deliberate opening up of unemployment schemes in several countries to new groups of workers during the crisis can clearly be seen as a positive trend contrasting with developments over recent decades.

This paper is an update of the synthetic job quality index (JQI) for the EU27 countries which has been created in 2008 (see ETUI Working paper 2008.03 and 2008.07) in an attempt to shed light on the question of how European countries compare with each other and how they are developing over time in terms of job quality. The results point out that the crisis seems to have affected different dimensions of job quality in different ways. Overall, there is a decline in measured job quality and job quality levels in Europe remain highly diverse. There is a clear increase in the use of part-time and fixed-term contracts and/or in the extent to which workers reported that they were working in such jobs involuntarily. Moreover, the numbers of workers who are afraid to lose their job have increased markedly which are clear signs of the declining bargaining power of labour brought on by the crisis.

This working paper is an update of the 2009/3 ETUI Working Paper that was itself an abridged and revised version of the introductory chapter of the book EU Labour Migration since Enlargement: Trends, Impacts and Policies. The book, published by Ashgate in May 2009, was edited by the present authors. This updated working paper focuses on the effects of the crisis on intra-EU labour mobility. It is based mostly on recent employment and population data from the European Labour Force Survey while also drawing on some material from an upcoming book to be published by the authors at Ashgate.

In particular due to increasing female employment over the last decades employment has become more flexible in regard to the contract form and we observe more discontinuous employment careers. This paper discusses in how far retirement pension systems in Europe are suited to cover the specific risks of flexible workers. Recent reforms to these systems (e.g. the strengthening of private elements) and their outcomes on flexible workers are also scrutinised. Section 1 discusses the increasing flexibility of working lives, focussing on breaks in paid employment caused by the incompatible demands of family and working life and on atypical forms of employment, in particular part-time and fixed-term employment. Section 2 discusses the problems encountered by persons with flexible labour market histories with regard to retirement pensions, and points to good practices from several European countries. Section 3 analyses retirement pension in Germany in detail based on the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) data which contains life course information. It looks at differences in pension coverage taking account of the full-time and part-time employment history of individuals. It puts specific emphasis on the private ‘Riester pension’ plan which contains incentives for participation of specific labour market groups usually disadvantaged in third pillar private pension schemes.

Over the last three decades trade unions in almost all European countries have been losing members. In particular non-standard workers (part-time employed, temporary employed and own- account self-employed) are currently less likely than those on standard contracts to be organised in unions. The paper, which is based on a literature review, has a two-fold purpose. A first objective is to provide a survey of the initiatives developed by trade unions in Germany, the Netherlands and the UK for organising non-standard workers. A second objective is to assess whether, and to what extent, the Dutch and German unions are influenced by British union practices for recruiting new members and among them non-standard workers.

The economic crisis which began in most European countries in mid-2008 has had severe effects on labour markets. Although no country has escaped the crisis, the extent of output losses and the number of jobs lost, as well as the resulting rise in unemployment, vary considerably between countries. In order to shed light on this issue, this paper examines empirically how the current economic crisis has affected the different European economies in terms of the impact on output, and the knock-on effects, influenced by the specific institutional frameworks, on employment and unemployment.On the basis of comparable quarterly Eurostat data the differences between countries in terms of the way that the loss of output is translated into falls in working hours and head-count employment and rises in unemployment are analysed. A range of institutional factors expected to influence the transmission from output to employment and unemployment is examined for a selected group of four countries (Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark and Spain).

Current levels of youth unemployment need to be understood in the context of increased labor market flexibility, an expansion of higher education, youth migration, and family legacies of long-term unemployment. Compared with previous recessions, European-wide policies and investments have significantly increased with attempts to support national policies. By mapping these developments and debates, we illustrate the different factors shaping the future of European labor markets. We argue that understanding youth unemployment requires a holistic approach that combines an analysis of changes in the economic sphere around labor market flexibility, skills attainment, and employer demand, as well as understanding the impact of family legacies affecting increasingly polarized trajectories for young people today. The success of EU policy initiatives and investments will be shaped by the ability of national actors to implement these effectively.

Examining the occupational variation within non-standard employment, this book combines case studies and comparative writing to illustrate how and why alternative occupational employment patterns are formed. Through expert contributions, a framework is developed integrating explanations based on labour market regulation, industrial relations and skill supply, filling the gaps in previous scholastic research.