scholarly journals (Re)making labour markets and economic crises: The case of Ireland

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Enda Murphy ◽  
Julien Mercille

The 2008 economic crisis has had significant impacts on labour markets around the world. In Europe, in particular, the need for internal devaluation within European Union nations in financial difficulty precipitated a wave of labour market reforms alongside the reform of welfare systems struggling to cope with high levels of unemployment. Various analyses have explored the nature of these changes separately for the labour market and welfare systems. Using a conceptual framework rooted in a political economy understanding the social nature of labour, this article takes an inclusive approach to understanding regulatory changes for both employed and unemployed labour. We do this using the case of Ireland, a country that went through a severe economic crisis, was subject to a European Union/European Central Bank/International Monetary Fund bailout in 2010 and witnessed one of the most significant labour market crises in Europe. The Irish case is instructive because it highlights both the range and depth of regulatory interventions utilised by the state during periods of crisis to deal with the social nature of labour and its role under advanced capitalism. JEL codes: J01, J08, J48.

Author(s):  
Manuel Hernández Pedreño ◽  
Diego Pascual López Carmona

Introducción: El mercado de trabajo en España ha sufrido significativos cambios como consecuencia de la actual crisis económica. El efecto sobre el colectivo inmigrante se manifiesta desde el lado de la oferta y de la demanda, pues afloran nuevas estrategias en los trabajadores extranjeros y diferentes preferencias de contratación desde el empresariado. Estas pautas sugieren la aparición de un nuevo modelo de inserción laboral de la mano de obra extranjera en el contexto español.Método: A partir de técnicas cuantitativas y cualitativas se analiza en la Región de Murcia y en España la evolución de la situación laboral de los trabajadores inmigrantes. El análisis cuantitativo se fundamenta en la explotación estadística de varias fuentes de información sobre el mercado de trabajo nacional y regional. El análisis cualitativo se ha nutrido de once entrevistas en profundidad en las que se incluye a trabajadores extranjeros y a representantes del mundo empresarial.Resultados: Desde el marco teórico de la segmentación laboral se identifican las nuevas bases en las que se asientan las relaciones laborales tras la crisis económica, ofreciendo desde una doble visión (cuantitativa y cualitativa) las nuevas pautas que configuran la actual inserción laboral de los extranjeros en España. Así, además de verificar la tendencia hacia el cambio de modelo a nivel estadístico, se aportan los discursos de trabajadores inmigrantes y empresarios españoles que lo ratifican.Discusión o Conclusión: El análisis pone de manifiesto la afluencia de nuevas estrategias de inserción laboral según nacionalidad (modelo emergente), caracterizadas por diferentes pautas de competencia, sustitución y complementariedad; derivadas del propio proceso de integración socio-laboral de los inmigrantes y del devenir de la crisis económica, que coloca a los extranjeros en nuevas posiciones sociales. Un modelo alejado en algunos aspectos del modelo inicial (tradicional), donde predominaba la complementariedad laboral entre españoles y extranjeros y, en menor medida, la competencia. Introduction: As a result of the current economic crisis, the Spanish labour market has undergone significant changes. Immigrants have been affected in terms of the supply and demand given that employers are using new strategies and different contracting preferences for foreign workers. These guidelines suggest the emergence of a new model for the insertion of immigrants into the Spanish labour market.Method: Based on both qualitative and quantitative techniques, an analysis of the evolution of the current labour situation of immigrants has been carried out as regards the Region of Murcia and Spain. The quantitative analysis is based on the statistical use of several information resources regarding the national and regional labour markets. For the qualitative analysis, eleven in depth interviews have been held with foreign workers and representatives of the business world.Results: From the theoretical framework of the labour segmentation, the new bases, on which labour relationships are established following the financial crisis, have been identified. These bases offer a dual perspective (quantitative and qualitative) of the new guidelines that establish the current insertion of foreign citizens into the Spanish labour market. Thus, apart from the verification of the trend toward paradigm shift on a statistical level, we include the opinions of immigrant workers and Spanish employers confirming this.Discussion or Conclusion: The analysis reveals the existence of new strategies for insertion into the labour market according to nationality (emerging model) characterised by different patterns of competition, replacement and complementarity. These new guidelines are the result of the social and labour integration process of immigrants and the evolution of the economic crisis which gives foreign workers a new social status. An emerging model which, in some aspects, is far from the original model (traditional) where the labour complementarity between Spanish and foreign citizens was dominant and, to a lesser extent, competition.


2011 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 25-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski

This study analyses labour market trends that appeared in Poland and other Visegrad Group countries during the global economic crisis, i.e. between 2007 and 2009. Special attention is paid to the changes in employment and unemployment rates that occurred in that period. For the sake of comparison, the labour market indicators are contrasted with average rates for the European Union and the euro area. The presented analysis aims to identify the degree to which unemployment rates and indicators of employment changed in the selected countries in response to the global crisis and to explain why the labour markets in the sample countries reacted differently. It also addresses the changing production volumes and labour market flexibility, particularly towards wages, employment and working time. The above analyses show that the labour markets of the Visegrad Group countries changed significantly during the global economic crisis, i.e. between 2007 and 2009; unemployment rates rose, while volumes and rates of employment decreased. In Poland, the two indicators changed their values relatively insignificantly, but in Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic the changes were quite distinct. In the crisis years, Polish employment fell and unemployment increased to a relatively small degree. Although the main reason for this was the quite favourable growth trend in the Polish GDP, cuts in real wage and working time reductions also played a role. The relatively marked decline in the Hungarian employment is maliny attributed to the strong downward trend in the country’s GDP, but the decline would have probably been much more extensive, if not for the reductions in working time, real wages and labour productivity. The large declines in the Slovak and Czech employment appeared because the countries' GDPs grew smaller while real wages grew bigger. Shorter working hours and limitations on labour productivity that the two countries introduced could not reverse the unfavourable employment trends that occurred during economic downturn.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 1417-1435
Author(s):  
Giacomo Balduzzi ◽  
Anna Rosa Favretto

The principle of intergenerational justice is much more common in the environmental sector, but it is becoming less unusual to consider it in a social and political context. The last economic crisis has significantly increased inequality among and across generations. In several EU countries, the number of NEETs raised dramatically after the recession. Moving from the Italian case, the paper focuses on the policies recently implemented to tackle the problem. Evidence shows that solutions exclusively focused on the labour market are not sufficient to activate a full social inclusion. Hence, the authors suggest considering intergenerational justice as intergenerational inclusion and in terms of active participation and empowerment in people’s local communities. The analysis takes into account theoretical issues and practical implications of such a viewpoint, referring in particular to welfare systems and their effectiveness in facing this kind of challenge.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 1789
Author(s):  
Valentyna A. VASYLIEVA ◽  
Alla V. ZELISKO ◽  
Olga I. ZOZULIAK

The article deals with the peculiarities of the processes of adaptation of the legal regulation of cooperatives in post-socialist states (as exemplified by Ukraine) to the requirements of the European Union. Such features are formed taking into account historical, social and economic prerequisites of the development of the modern legal framework of Ukraine. Authors are focused on problems of pecuniary autonomy of cooperatives; the possibility of its full-fledged activities as the parties to market relations; implementation of legal mechanisms that can increase competitive advantage of cooperatives in present-day conditions; increase the level of security and protection of rights and interests of cooperative members. It is proved that the effective entrepreneurial activity of the cooperative is rather compatible with the social nature of the latter, moreover – it contributes to the implementation of such a nature. Behind the arguments in favor of such an approach there is the principle declared in the practices of the European Union law – the focus of cooperatives on the affirmation of the interests of its members.


1996 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Johann Eekhoff

AbstractThis paper examines the economic implications of the posted workers law. The law provides that employment regulations such as minimum wages in the German construction sector are to be applied to both German and foreign companies operating in Germany. By choosing such an interventionist instrument, its impact is rather harmful to the economy, leading actually to an exclusion of Portuguese, Irish and other employees from the German labour market. Thereby the law not only prevents the convergence of living conditions within the European Union but also increases the costs of construction and living in Germany. Another consequence of the law is that the demand for protectionist instruments in other sectors and countries will become stronger. In order to improve the social and employment conditions in Europe, the paper therefore suggests to introduce more instead of less competition in the German labour market.


2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (28) ◽  
pp. 541
Author(s):  
Dagmar Brozova

The growing role of institutions and their influence on the labour market outcomes, i.e. wage rates and labour allocation, has been among the most significant characteristic features of labour markets in recent decades. Labour market economics built its paradigm on the principles of marginalism, which brought suitable instruments for analysis of market agents´ individual decisions capable of achieving effective solutions. Smith´s “invisible hand” has gradually been limited by institutional interventions – by governments, corporations and trade unions with government legislation, corporate personnel policies and collective bargaining. The expanding regulatory interventions into the labour market and the effort to explain the reality leads inevitably to the fact that modern labour market economics incorporates more and more institutional theories. The contribution outlines the gradual invasion of neoinstitutional topics and theories into the neoclassical labour market paradigm and it analyses the differences in the neoclassical and neoinstitutional interpretation of labour markets’ functioning. The recent discussion on the consequences for labour market economics theory is presented. A conclusion about the gradual direction towards a changed paradigm of labour market economics is presented.


1992 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 435-468 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malcolm Mansfield

ABSTRACTThis article attempts to describe a major debate in turn of the century social reform through a close reading of the published works of Charles Booth, J.A. Hobson, William Beveridge, A.C. Pigou and others. My aim is to reconstruct the emergence and elaboration of a theory of labour market disorganisation, understood as the absence of effective norms governing employment relationships in urban labour markets subject to chronic over-supply. In so doing I shall take issue with a tendency in the historiography of social policy to fragment this debate into the development of two distinct conceptual frameworks corresponding to the social problems of poverty and unemployment more or less as we know them today.


1998 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 508-532 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Gahan ◽  
Tim Harcourt

The study of tbe employment relation has always held a somewhat ambiguous position within the field of economics. The nature of labour market adjustment processes and unique aspects of the employment relation have posed problems for standard economic theories and have limited the use of formal modelling. Moreover, institutionalist approaches have been a greater challenge to labour economists than in any other area of enquiry within the discipline (Jacoby, 1990). Traditionally, this difference has been manifest in a clear distinction between labour economics and industrial relations as separate fields of study. The artificiality of such a distinction, we argue, poses problems for understanding the phenomena of concern to both disciplines. In this paper we argue that notwithstanding the important insights gained from standard neoclassical models of the labour market, they do not provide an adequate basis for understanding the employment relationship and institutional features of labour markets. Instead, we begin with the assumption adopted by industrial relations scholars that the labour market is different from other economic exchange relationships and use this as a basis for developing a more realistic framework to understand both the social and economic dimensions of the employment relation.


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-53
Author(s):  
Pk. Katabay

Barriers of modernizing and innovative developing the social and labour sphere of the Russian economy have been revealed and conceptual principles of state management of the development of economic relations in Russia in the framework of the new economic reality as well as the strategy of resetting the Russian economy on the innovative way of development and increasing business activity have been formulated. Local labour markets have been defined as an economic category. Institutional characteristics of the labour market have been presented, and the process of institualizing the development of economic relations has been explained.


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