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The ‘Europeanisation’ and globalisation of national economies,
demographic and technological change and changes in women’s labour
market behaviour are posing new challenges for national labour
markets. The gradual removal of the social and cultural barriers to
women’s participation in paid work, the de facto or statutory
raising of the retirement age and the completion and extension of
the European internal market have all contributed to the blurring of
the social, spatial and political boundaries of national labour
markets and increased the competition for jobs. At the same time,
national governments have less freedom to pursue monetary and fiscal
policies likely to promote employment. As a result, national labour
market policy institutions involved in wage-setting, vocational
qualifications and further training, the structuring of employment
contracts (dismissal protection, working-time regulation) and social
protection are coming under increasing pressure to adapt. Labour
market risks are increasingly being shifted on to individuals and
firms in the form of flexibilisation, irregular earnings and
enforced regional mobility. New forms of social risk management are
required in order to provide both flexibility and security.
Against this background, the research unit’s work focuses primarily
on the new employment risks, particularly on the risk of long-term
unemployment and permanently precarious employment relationships.
Its principal concern is to establish the conditions for an
efficient and solidaristic labour market policy. Besides
unemployment insurance, placement services and employment promotion,
labour market policy broadly defined also includes those
institutions such as employment regulation, vocational training
systems, social security and its funding and industrial relations
systems that exert a strong influence on individual employment
decisions. In this connection, the analysis of the employment
dynamic, of labour market behaviour and qualification needs, as well
as of the interface between the labour market and the social state,
are of strategic importance.
The main concept underpinning the research programme is the
notion of transitional labour markets.
> research concept
The research unit’s research projects can be divided into five
main areas:
n The labour market and
the welfare state: The social protection of labour market risks
over the life course – Risk management through
transitional labour markets
Analysis of the interface between the labour market and
the welfare state is the first area of research. The
predominant concern here is the theoretical and empirical
analysis of the need for labour market policy and the
institutions of the welfare state to adapt to the new risks
of working life and the capacity of national employment
systems to reform themselves in response to the
globalisation of labour markets, including the
‘Europeanisation’ of labour market policy.
n The efficiency and effectiveness
of labour market policy
Another area of research is analysis of the
efficiency and effectiveness of labour market policy. The
predominant concern here is with issues relating to the
implementation, systematic benchmarking and rigorous
evaluation of local, regional, national and European labour
market policy and the consequent learning from good
practice.
n
The ‘Europeanisation’ of the labour
market and of labour market policy
The aim of this research area is to depict and explain
tendencies in member states of the EU towards a
Europeanisation of national employment policies. The focus
lies on the impact of supranational institutions like the EU-Commission
and the European Council on the national formation of
employment policies. In addition, we investigate the mutual
impact of national policies (policy diffusion), and the
relationship between EU employment policies and other policy
areas such as EU structural funds. The methodological
approach in this research area covers a broad variety
ranging from qualitative case studies to macro-quantitative
comparisons.
n
Structural changes in
employment
The research unit is engaged in several projects whose
main focus is the structural change taking place in
employment. These projects have two broad sets of concerns.
In the first, the focus is on the development of new
employment relationships, such as part-time working,
fixed-term jobs, temporary work, multiple job holding and
the new forms of self-employment, as well as hybrid forms of
paid and unpaid work, with particular attention being paid
to their implications for social security. In the second,
the main emphasis is on analysis of the skills required for
the new jobs and employment forms that are emerging, the
identification of qualification needs and the successful
translation of the knowledge thus acquired into the training
decisions taken by individuals, firms and labour market
policymakers.
n Additional projects
> Introduction of the project areas
and all research projects
> Completed projects |
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