Income support policies and labour market reforms under austerity in Greece

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manos Matsaganis
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Income Support ◽  
Labour Market Policies ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Employment Service ◽  
Active Labour ◽  
Protection Legislation ◽  
Funding Opportunities ◽  
Constructive Engagement ◽  
The Unemployed

This chapter reviews the changes in labour market policies under conditions of harsh austerity and mass unemployment in Greece in 2010-2015. Three policy areas are covered: income support to the unemployed, active labour market policies, and employment protection legislation. We find that labour market policies in Greece have failed to rise to the challenge of harsh austerity and mass unemployment. A legacy of backwardness, neglect, and general lack of sophistication proved difficult if not impossible to overturn under the emergency conditions prevailing since 2010. Moreover, as regards the less controversial aspects of the structural reforms demanded by the country’s creditors under the bailout agreements (for instance, supporting job creation, upgrading the Public Employment Service, and improving the absorption, as well as the effectiveness of EU funding), the domestic actors’ preferred approach of passively adjusting to European funding opportunities, rather than genuinely puzzling for solutions, left no room for a more constructive engagement. The adverse effects of the resulting handicap are there for all to see.

scholarly journals The controversial nature of workfare programmes

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-14
Author(s):  
Imola Cseh Papp ◽  
Erika Varga ◽  
Zoltán Szira ◽  
László Hajós
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Social Expenditure ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
Labour Market Policies ◽  
The Public ◽  
Active Labour Market Policies ◽  
Active Labour ◽  
Public Work ◽  
The Times ◽  
Controversial Nature

Abstract According to the OECD, active employment policies include all social expenditure that are directed at improving the chances of finding a job and income generation (except education). Active labour market policies are around to assist in enhancing labour market flexibility at the times of economic changes. Their key components are the so-called activation strategies that act as typical prerequisites of benefitting from unemployment security/support systems in every EU country. The workfare concept lies behind the public work programmes. There are serious professional debates whether public work can primarily be seen as a ’compulsion and work test’ or, rather, as an opportunity of entering the primary labour market. The available efficiency analyses unanimously state that public work forms have the biggest role in testing willingness to work and the obligatory nature is the strongest of all active labour market policies. Research also indicates that public work reintegrates only few people back to the primary labour market and the majority are restrained from seeking a job and other income generating activities. There are several reasons for and against public work and opinions differ. The paper summarises the benefits and drawbacks on the basis of international and Hungarian analyses.

scholarly journals Mixing apples with oranges? Partisanship and active labour market policies in Europe

2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Vlandas
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Job Creation ◽  
Welfare Regimes ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Labour Market Policies ◽  
Active Labour Market Policies ◽  
Active Labour ◽  
Training Schemes ◽  
The Unemployed ◽  
The Impact

There are competing theoretical expectations and conflicting empirical results concerning the impact of partisanship on spending on active labour market policies (ALMPs). This paper argues that one should distinguish between different ALMPs. Employment incentives and rehabilitation programmes incentivize the unemployed to accept jobs. Direct job creation reduces the supply of labour by creating non-commercial jobs. Training schemes raise the human capital of the unemployed. Using regression analysis this paper shows that the positions of political parties towards these three types of ALMPs are different. Party preferences also depend on the welfare regime in which parties are located. In Scandinavia, left-wing parties support neither employment incentives nor direct job creation schemes. In continental and Liberal welfare regimes, left-wing parties oppose employment incentives and rehabilitation programmes to a lesser extent and they support direct job creation. There is no impact of partisanship on training. These results reconcile the previously contradictory findings concerning the impact of the Left on ALMPs.

The Costs of Firm Exit and Labour Market Policies: New Evidence from Europe

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Andrews ◽  
Irene Ferrari ◽  
Alessandro Saia
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Unemployment Duration ◽  
High Rate ◽  
Firm Exit ◽  
Job Destruction ◽  
Worker Displacement ◽  
Labour Market Policies ◽  
Active Labour ◽  
The Unemployed ◽  
New Evidence

Abstract The churning of firms is an inherent process of industrialized economies, which entails a high rate of job destruction. Thus, a key question is: what are the policies that minimize the costs of worker displacement due to business closure? Accordingly, this paper exploits a retrospective panel of workers in 13 European countries over the period 1985–2008 to explore the factors which shape the reemployment prospects of workers displaced due to business closure. The results suggest that higher spending on active labour market policies increases the reemployment prospects of the unemployed workers displaced by business closure, both in terms of unemployment duration and in terms of stability of reemployment. On the contrary, there is evidence of a negative and sizable impact of passive labour market policies on unemployment duration.

French employment market policies: dualisation and destabilisation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hélène Caune ◽  
Sotiria Theodoropoulou
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Labour Market Policy ◽  
Active Labour Market Policy ◽  
Market Policy ◽  
Labour Market Policies ◽  
Active Labour ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Protection Legislation ◽  
Fiscal Austerity

In this chapter explores whether the direction of labour market reforms in France has changed since 2010 by comparison with the previous two decades. It looks into broad labour market policy areas, namely, income support for the unemployed, active labour market policies and employment protection legislation before and after 2009 and asks the following questions. What form has retrenchment taken under the recent fiscal pressures and how has it been distributed across these policy domains? Has the emphasis of active labour market policy instruments changed? How have policy changes affected insiders and outsiders in the labour market? It is shown that during economic crisis and the subsequent fiscal austerity period there were no paradigmatic changes in French labour market policies, which continued to develop along a path pursued since the early 2000s. Successive governments, both centre-right and centre-left, have implemented flexicurity à la française, with a focus on flexibility at the expense of security. External flexibility – firms’ ability to hire and dismiss workers – has been developed for both core workers and more precarious forms of employment (temporary work). Furthermore, new measures also introduced important changes in the field of internal flexibility (working-time organisation, wages).

scholarly journals Who Wants Demanding Active Labour Market Policies? Public Attitudes towards Policies that put Pressure on the Unemployed

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
FLAVIA FOSSATI
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Labour Market Policies ◽  
Active Labour Market Policies ◽  
Country Level ◽  
Active Labour ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Political Right ◽  
The Unemployed

AbstractThe literature addressing attitudes about social policy and the welfare state has been telling us for decades that welfare interventions are supported by those individuals who benefit from a specific measure. The diffusion of ‘demanding’ active labour market policies (ALMPs), however, challenges this relationship. Using a novel dataset, I analyse which individual- and country-level factors explain public support for demanding ALMPs in five Western European countries. The results show that labour market risk and ideological orientation influence public attitudes towards these ALMPs. Thereby, unemployed individuals sympathising with the political right are more strongly opposed to demanding measures than employed individuals with the same political preferences. Moreover, aggregate support is found to be correlated with the country's ALMP legacy, varying from high levels in Germany and the UK to low levels in Denmark and France. The findings suggest that most ALMPs are in fact implemented despite the opposition of their beneficiaries.

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