debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
Few studies have offered a regional breakdown of the impacts of the crisis of unemployment in Italy. We know that the recession’s effects were not spread evenly but which areas were affected most? Perhaps most importantly, did the crisis increase or reduce the structural and deep gap between Mezzogiorno and the rest of Italy? In [...]
The international financial crisis had disastrous consequences for Portugal in terms of economic growth, public debt and unemployment. Yet, the impact of the European sovereign debt crisis was more dramatic: a mounting budget deficit and recession led to rapid growth of sovereign debt. Shut out of bond markets, Portugal followed Greece and Ireland in seeking emergency [...]
Young people have always been considered a group at the margins of the Bulgarian labour market. Even during 11 consecutive years (1998-2008) of economic growth they failed to shed this unenviable position, mainly due to structural constraints such as insufficient levels of qualification, skills, experience, social capital, etc. So, somehow predictably, youths have suffered a [...]
The Great Recession, so to use the expression that the Nobel laureate Paul Krugman has proposed, has, on the one hand, exacerbated the old weaknesses of the country’ school-to-work transition system and, on the other hand, added new reasons of concern. In fact, it has dramatically further increased both the absolute and the relative disadvantage [...]
Even though the Nordic countries show marked similarities in terms of socioeconomic and social conditions, there is much that separates them. Welfare policy ambitions may be similar, but when we examine the conditions for youths to establish themselves in the labour market and earn a living, we find significant variations. Youths face considerably less favourable [...]
Until recently, youth unemployment had received relatively little attention in Poland’s policy-making circles. However, since 2008 the youth employment situation has deteriorated considerably, even though Poland’s general economic indicators stood out positively in the EU. And when one factors in that around one million youths migrated abroad, the situation is even worse. The Polish case [...]
The Social Europe Journal website has paid a great deal of attention to youth unemployment – and rightfully so. However, becoming fully aware of the depth and persistence of the labour market problems of younger generations requires a broader perspective in three ways. Firstly, researchers need to look beyond unemployment and include other labour market [...]
After four years of crisis, the deterioration of the labour market in Spain has reached dramatic proportions. This is mainly manifested in the situation of unemployment, which currently affects a volume of 5,69 million people (15-64 years) and recorded a rate of 24,8% (Labour Force Survey, National Institute for Statistics, second quarter 2012). The forecasts [...]
The last crisis has merely amplified what has become a quasi structural phenomenon: in the last 30 years, the youth unemployment rate in France has never dropped below 15% and has regularly exceeded 20%. And yet, youth integration into the labour market has been an ongoing public policy objective since the end of the 1970s. [...]
The issue of youth employment and unemployment in the Czech Republic is a topic whose importance has increased particularly with crisis phenomena that began to be visible in late 2008 and especially during the years 2009-2010. In this period significantly increased unemployment also increased youth unemployment. For a basic illustration we can use this chart: [...]
What was the case with youth unemployment in Greece before the crisis? The inactivity of Greek youth increased with almost 10% (from 63% to 72%) in the period of 2000-2008. This means that for the last decade, over two thirds of Greek youths were not involved actively in the labour market. In addition, Eurostat data [...]
Stephen Hill has a post on this website criticising the use of the youth unemployment rate as a measure of the extent that joblessness amongst young people is an economic and social problem. Unfortunately he goes way over the top in a number of regards, notably the claim that: “Economists don’t know how to measure [...]
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