共通論題：ユーロ10年と金融危機
世界金融危機・同時不況下のEUの雇用調整の行方
2010 年 2010 巻 30 号 p. 89-111
詳細
2010 年 2010 巻 30 号 p. 89-111
The deep recession caused by the U. S. subprime problem and ensuing global financial crisis has inevitably affected employment adjustment in the EU. Looking back over the mid 1970s to mid 1980s, structural unemployment caused mounting job losses and unemployment even though the economy bottomed out twice. While the development of EU integration and reform of labour markets helped improve employment conditions from the mid 1990s, the concern today is that the current crisis threatens to rekindle structural unemployment.
This paper examines the current recession's severity compared to previous recessions, employment trends leading up to the financial crisis, and labor market diversity within the EU. We then present an interim assessment of employment and wage adjustment and policy actions being taken in the current recession.
Notably, the pace of employment adjustment has increased due to structural changes in recent years such as the greater diversity of employment types, especially part-time workers and fixed-term employment. Meanwhile, policy measures have helped save jobs by encouraging work sharing and work hour flexibility, thereby reducing volatile employment adjustments.
However, key problems remain unresolved, including the dual labor market structure of regular (permanent contract, protected) and non-regular (temporary contract, unprotected) employment, as well as wage rigidity. In this respect, two concerns are the growing number of youth-unemployment, which threatens to aggravate structural unemployment, and wage growth amid the recession.
From a policy standpoint, the establishment of EU labor market reform guidelines, multinational monitoring, and open method of coordination (OMC) have helped to reduce the risk of repeating the policy mistakes that characterized the 1970s and 1980s. However, since national policies are implemented under the OMC framework, domestic conditions and fiscal constraints facing individual member states could generate large disparities in their policy actions and results.
