Much of the discussion on the future of work is focused on globalisation and technology, and their impacts on the labour market. However, there is also a growing interest in the business models used by cooperatives and social enterprises, and how they can contribute to a better future of work.
Economic disparities have been decreasing between EU member states over the past decade, but at the same time inequality has been growing within member states. Despite national level convergence, the gap in wealth and income between the rich and the poor is growing in most of Europe.
Imagine you’re at work and something happens: you have to leave to visit a client, you have to go home to let in the plumber, or you have to collect the kids from school as the football training has just been cancelled. If you’re lucky, your employer gives you the flexibility to do this. If you’re even luckier, it is YOU who decides upon your schedule and place of work.
Large scale restructuring involving job loss is usually well-documented, and there is rightly a focus on what options there are for those who have lost their jobs. But what impact does all this have on those that are left behind?
Over the last decade, European labour markets have seen a surge in the number of older workers in work and a continuous decline in their unemployment rates. A lot of young and middle-aged workers lost their jobs in the Great Recession, but not so the older age group. This means they receive less policy attention, which is unfortunate for older workers who suddenly find themselves without a job.
Companies are constantly competing for the next big thing in innovation – the next-generation 3D phone, the quantum computer, the virtual doctor. They fixate on technological breakthroughs and look for new business models. But innovation also needs systems, an organisational structure and people who work together.
Wages grew and wage inequality fell in most EU countries in 2015. Germany is not one of the countries where wages rose most, but it did have the largest reduction of wage inequality. Our analysis shows that the German minimum wage policy introduced in 2015 strongly lifted the wages of the lowest-paid employees, particularly those employees who were lower-skilled, younger or working in services.
The integration of migrants from outside the EU into society is one of the key challenges that the Union must address to maintain social cohesion and equality. In this blog piece Enrique Fernández-Macías and Tania Paniagua de la Iglesia look at how well migrants and their descendants have integrated into the labour markets of EU Member States.
In this blog, originally posted in Social Europe, Massimiliano Mascherini looks at the enduring issue of long-term unemployment among young people. Despite considerable improvement in the labour market participation of youth in recent years, the legacy of the crisis is still visible in the substantial increase in the cohort of long-term unemployed young people.
This blog piece was originally posted on Social Europe. Its authors are Martina Bisello and Enrique Fernández-Macías, both researchers at Eurofound, and Vincenzo Maccarrone, from University College Dublin.
In this blog piece, originally posted on Social Europe, Eurofound Research Manager John Hurley looks at shifting employment structures in recent years.
In the follow blog piece, originally posted on Social Europe, Carlos Vacas-Soriano and Enrique Fernández-Macías look at evolution of household disposable real income levels over the period 2004-2013, and the broader phenomenon on Europe's shrinking middle class.
Eurofound (European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions) is a tripartite EU body, whose mission is to provide knowledge to assist in the development of better social, employment and work-related policies.
