Promoting social Europe? The development of European youth unemployment policies

Since the beginning of the millennium, the institutions of the European Union have intensified their political efforts to combat youth employment. Youth‐specific policy initiatives were launched after the financial and economic crisis of 2008, and the overall subsequent rise of unemployment rates among young people. In this article, we analyse and assess these developments on the basis of an analysis of European policy documents and interviews. Our conclusions are twofold. One, we argue that the Europe 2020 Strategy and its flagship initiatives devoted to youth do not constitute a new policy field or approach, but are rather the outcome of an incrementalist logic of policy development. Two, the European youth strategy is clearly committed to activation, and it pushes policy developments towards a minimalist policy approach of precarious protection. Both developments are explained by the actor constellations and path dependencies of the European policy arena.     

Unemployment and Labour Market Policies: Some Lessons from West Germany

The author points out that West Germany has had low inflation, high industrial efficiency, and good vocational training, but has not escaped rising levels of unemployment. After an analysis of employment trends in Germany since 1945 there is a review of varying government policies in public expenditure and in dealing with unemployment. The author relates demographic trends to employment patterns, and refers to such phenomena as the "dormant labour force", concluding that unemployment will remain high. He reviews the effects of social security benefits and of job creation schemes. He concludes that none of the well-known remedies for unemployment have proved effective in themselves but that short-term job creation schemes are very much a "second-best". He concludes that industrial efficiency — though essential — is not enough in itself and that conquering inflation or providing youth training are shown by the German example to be only a partial help and not a solution to improving employment prospects.     

Europeanisation and the Youth Guarantee: The case of France

In 2013, the European Council approved the Youth Guarantee (YG) to counteract youth unemployment. Because of its specific features, the YG is useful for understanding whether the EU has triggered policy change in national youth unemployment policies. Contrary to most of the literature on similar topics, we focused in this study on the effect of this specific European measure rather than on broader EU strategies or policies. The study contributes to the literature by qualifying the degree of fit/misfit and suggesting a counterfactual analysis, using the case of France. We first situate the article within the broader Europeanisation debate and present our research design. The second section introduces the policy structure of the YG and investigates youth unemployment policy in France, prior to and after the European initiative. The third section discusses whether the French youth unemployment policy would have been developed in the same way without the YG. A final section concludes.     

A multifactorial explanation of youth unemployment and the special case of Austria

One of the biggest challenges currently facing European society is the dramatically high level of youth unemployment. Commonly, political solutions and strategies can be found in those countries that have been able to keep youth unemployment low in spite of the financial and economic crises. Austria is such a case. On the basis of European Union Member State data, the article gives a multifactorial explanation of youth unemployment and asks whether these factors can explain relatively low youth unemployment in Austria. With the country's “youth safety net” presented in detail, it is shown that active labour market policy reduces youth unemployment in Austria. The article also points out the limitations of cross‐country comparisons of youth unemployment rates and proposes the use of a greater number of indicators. Finally, the article argues for economic policies to stimulate demand, which have to be based on a political and social commitment to full employment.     

Youth‐oriented active labour market policies and economic crisis: Explaining policy effort in Greece and Portugal

The starting point of this study is the implementation of seemingly similar youth‐oriented labour market policies in Greece and Portugal. Both countries have suffered high youth unemployment rates and have been pressured to restructure their labour market as part of the rescue programmes adopted during the European sovereign debt crisis. Despite convergence in terms of policy trajectories, there is a significant divergence in employment outcomes. In Portugal, youth‐oriented policies were better‐targeted and structured. Their implementation has been more effective and has involved the social partners from the outset of the crisis. In Greece, policy design failures, administrative weaknesses and unfavourable macroeconomic conditions have limited the dynamics of youth‐oriented policies thus increasing youth insecurity. Τhe analysis suggests that convergence in policy content can be compatible with divergence in terms of outcomes.     

The Workfare Illusion: Re-examining the Concept and the British Case

This article contends that workfare programmes pursued by various OECD countries since the mid‐1990s do not amount to a fundamental change in policy. The limited potential of workfare is due to the fact that it fails to transcend the constraints of earlier forms of ‘active’ responses to unemployment. Furthermore, it suffers from specific policy‐making disadvantages not shared by these responses. The article opens with a survey of relevant academic debates on the subject. It then places workfare in a broader context by identifying its functional reach, as compared to other active policy responses to unemployment such as active labour market policy (ALMP). The third section analyses workfare policies in the United Kingdom, as developed since 1997, by re‐examining the British New Deal employment programme. That review demonstrates that workfare policies either depend on their ‘fit’ with the existing policy‐making heritage, or that they remain merely symbolic. The article concludes by suggesting that the potential of workfare to effect change in responses to unemployment continues to be of limited significance. In other words, capitalist employment and welfare systems continue to be characterized by incremental adaptation rather than by fundamental regime change as suggested by the critics of workfare.     

The quest for sustainable employment: Challenges faced by young people during the job‐search process

Young people who are unable to find and sustain employment are at risk for long‐term social and economic exclusion. Active labour market policies (ALMPs) addressing the problem of youth unemployment have focused on building the employability skills of young job seekers to expand their employment opportunities. Yet research exploring how young people navigate the job‐search process is limited. Drawing on interviews with young Australian job seekers and their employment consultants, this article addresses the questions of how young people navigate entry into employment through the job‐search process and what challenges they face. The study revealed three common frustrations experienced by the young people during their job‐search: employers' expectations of relevant work experience in the young person's preferred occupation, being required to apply for jobs not aligned with their career aspirations, and the impact of personal factors on their ability to confidently present themselves to prospective employers. The findings highlight the need for ALMPs and employers to facilitate positive employability support mechanisms that will build a stable platform from which young people can build a trajectory towards sustainable employment to reduce long‐term youth unemployment.     

Constructing Unemployment: Britain and France in Historical Perspective

Unemployment emerged as a specific social issue in the late‐19th century, but the nature of the threat it posed and the governing instruments available to address it varied widely. Using Britain and France as strongly contrasting cases, this article demonstrates the variable and historically contingent constructions of unemployment as a problem, and demonstrates how policy to address it was developed using administrative agencies that embodied specific, normative visions of how society and employment should operate. The different governing trajectories through which the issue was tackled is analyzed in terms of the context within which the problem of unemployment originally emerged. The article demonstrates the socio‐political nature of unemployment's construction and, with reference to recent labour market change, questions its utility as a means of assessing economic or social well‐being.     

The work prospects of older employees: An international comparison

The labour markets in the European Community countries are faced with a massive change in the structural composition of employee age groups. This article examines the employment prospects for older persons in selected European countries. The first, introductory section gives a quantitative comparison of existing levels of employment of older persons. This group is defined on the basis of the Eurostat labour force statistics; it comprises those aged over 50 but under 65. The second section aims to give an overall picture of the different types of early pension and the different methods by which older employees were taken off the labour market in the past. In the 1970s and 1980s the countries of Europe took numerous measures to bring about early cessation of work and early pensions for older persons, in order to reduce the labour surplus at a time when unemployment was increasing. In future, however, employee age structures will develop on opposite lines (third section): demographic change will affect pensions policy financially (extending working life rather than pensioning workers off). The change in company employee age structures will begin in the 1990s. This new impending trend calls for longer-term adjustments in employment policies: these will be considered in the fourth, concluding section of the article.     

浅议政府治理女大学生就业问题的对策

就业是民生之本,现如今我国的就业形势日益严峻,而女大学生就业问题正在呈现出显性化发展的态势,政府作为治理失业这一社会问题的主导者,其政策导向对女大学生就业的促进尤为必要。我国已经实现了对大学生就业实行“统分统配”向“自主择业”的转变。女大学生失去了政策的保障,就业压力变大,就业状况不甚良好。而政府政策和解决措施的建立与完善对于治理女大学生就业问题有着重要的作用,因此,政府应提供具有力度的公共政策支持,为女大学生就业提供良好的空间和环境。     

Patterns of change in youth unemployment regimes: France and Switzerland compared

The comparison between France and Switzerland enables us to compare a country that has a strong interventionist tradition in the labour market and whose youth unemployment is endemically high with a more liberal country that is faced with a more recent increase in youth unemployment but which, nevertheless, remains relatively measured. Starting from different rules and values, the two youth unemployment systems resemble each other insofar as both exclude most unemployed youth from all available benefits. From this angle, French egalitarianism rejoins Swiss differentialism. In both cases, it is not the least of paradoxes that the system of unemployment insurance so little benefits those who are most vulnerable to the economic crisis and the present dearth of jobs.     

Continental Drift: On Unemployment Policy Change in Bismarckian Welfare States

This article analyses the development of unemployment policies over the past 20 years in four continental European countries: Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands. It shows that, far from being as ‘frozen’ as many analysts have suggested, each of these Bismarckian welfare states has in fact seen considerable change in this policy sector in recent decades. In Belgium, France and Germany, significant changes in unemployment policy reforms have unfolded gradually, through an accumulation of small changes. This finding offers some support to recent theorizing on the potential for policy changes that are both incremental and transformative. However, while such processes have led to shifts in unemployment policy that are far from negligible, the article also argues that they fall short of those seen in this policy sector in other welfare institutional contexts as well as in the Netherlands, where substantive reforms have in the last decade been complemented with changes to the institutional framework for unemployment policy. Through its analysis of the relationship between the institutional features of these welfare states and the possibility frontier of unemployment policy reform, the article develops a nuanced perspective on the scope for and resistance to social policy change in continental Europe.     

Comparing unemployment protection and social assistance in 14 European countries. Four worlds of protection for people of working age

Pfeifer, M. Comparing unemployment protection and social assistance in 14 European countries. Four worlds of protection for people of working age This article aims to show which policy responses 14 Western European countries have adopted to deal with rising unemployment levels and increased need for benefits during working age. In contrast to earlier studies, both components of unemployment benefits (UB), i.e. unemployment insurance and unemployment assistance, were taken into account in a social rights indicator that depicts the legal entitlements of the unemployed. In total, there were eight indicators of both UB and social assistance representing expenditure, generosity, problem pressure and benefit entitlements. The following cluster analysis groups countries using these indicators. The resulting typology consisted of four ways of protecting the working‐aged: an extensive safety nets type operating well with functioning labour markets; a liberal protection type dealing with low levels of unemployment; a targeted protection type combined with an insider–outsider divide on the labour market; and lastly, a patchy safety nets type facing high unemployment levels.     

Optimal control of large nonlinear models: An efficient method of policy search applied to the Dutch economy

A modification of optimal control for an economy under uncertainty, by splitting the technique into a simulation phase and a control phase, makes policy optimization feasible for large-scale nonlinear models. The advantages of this approach in a policy search are clearly illustrated by an application to Dutch economic planning. A historical analysis shows that it is important to treat unemployment and the balance of payments as the key targets. That dual target strategy, worked out for the current planning period, leads to economic expansion and employment creation rather than retreachment.     

Public Works Programs

The acceleration of structural reform in the Russian economy dictated by the logic of the transitional period inevitably gives impetus to layoffs and mass unemployment. The reform of the economic mechanism is taking place in a period of gravest crisis, which has gripped literally all aspects of social life. Under these conditions, the experience of countries with a developed market economy in reducing the severity of the employment problem is extremely important to us. In the last six decades, state employment policy in these countries has been transformed into an extensive and relatively balanced system of measures which make it possible to correct processes in the labor market. Public works programs have become one of the important directions of this policy.     

Expediting youth's entry into employment whilst overlooking precariousness: Flexi‐employability and disciplinary activation in Hong Kong

With an emphasis placed on supply‐side interventions such as skills training and incentives enhancement, active labor market polices (ALMPs) are strongly promoted by international organizations and widely adopted across different welfare regimes to boost employment rates. This article first presents the under‐examined relationship between ALMPs and employment precariousness, which has posed a challenge to the neoliberal notion of employability and activation. Youth‐focused employment policies tend to speed up employment entry whilst downplaying the risk of precariousness and the importance of job quality, and thus further reinforcing the belief that engaging in precarious employment is tolerable if not inevitable. The article then examines the case of Hong Kong, which illustrates that its relatively low rate of youth unemployment may conceal the unfavorable employment conditions confronted by youth. It is argued that the service‐led employment policies and short‐term vocational training define the employability of young workers in terms of labor flexibilities. The coined phase of “flexi‐employability” is characterized by promoting youth's readiness for, and adaptability to, the volatilities and changing demands of the labor market. Arguably, the disciplinary approach to youth activation would only strengthen the work‐first principle by enforcing young people to take up jobs available and leave welfare as soon as possible, but without thoroughly addressing the risks and insecurities generated by the labor market in undermining their well‐being.     

Why targeting matters: The apprenticeship program for youth in the Czech Republic

In this paper, we analyze the targeting and outcomes of the apprenticeship program implemented under the Youth Guarantee/YG scheme in the Czech Republic. We examine the outcomes and targeting using counterfactual impact evaluation (quasi-experimental design) of the apprenticeship program on the basis of administrative data from the Czech Employment Office. The implementation strategy is analyzed using various policy documents. The findings indicate that the program is apparently targeted at those groups of young people who are less disadvantaged as regards education level and previous unemployment experience. At the same time, paradoxically, the effects in terms of outflows from the unemployment register are weak for the short-term and medium-term unemployed, as well as for low-skilled and high-skilled youth, and stronger effects are evident in the case of long-term unemployed and medium-skilled youth. The failures in targeting and in adjusting the program to the needs of more vulnerable groups of youth are due to an inconsistent implementation strategy of Czech Public Employment Services.     

浅析我国经济转型期城镇失业的现状及政府政策

通过对失业概念的界定,根据我国近十年城镇失业状况相关数据的统计和分析,进而对我国政府在城镇失业问题上所采取的一系列解决失业、促进就业的宏观经济政策的实践情况进行了浅析,希望能对此问题的研究有所助益。     

Successful yet insufficient: German policies for higher employment rates among older age groups

In recent years among the OECD countries, Germany has witnessed the largest increase in the employment rates of older people. This increase, and general German employment rates, are associated with both supply side measures in the fields of pensions and unemployment policies and employment promotion policies. Yet, supply side measures and Germany's shift from conservative towards liberal policy goals and policies in the case of older workers have resulted in economic inequality. These policies could be complemented by pro‐employability measures in order to become fully effective. This article describes recent policy reforms in the main policy fields of retirement, unemployment, and employment promotion, considers their effects on employment and inequality, and offers reform suggestions to raise further older worker employment rates without increasing inequality.     

Unemployment and education mismatch in the EU before and after the financial crisis

This paper investigates whether general formal education still helps youth avoid situations of unemployment and inactivity in favour of other labour force statuses (dependent employment, self-employment, education) across EU countries over the period 2006–2010. In a second step, we analyse whether the relationship between education and the labour statuses above is affected by different degrees of country-level education mismatch. Our results show that after the outbreak of the crisis and in countries with high educational mismatch there is an additional reduction in unemployment risk for highly educated people that is accompanied by a higher probability of being an employee than of remaining in education.