Austerity-Driven Labour Market Reforms in Southern Europe: Eroding the Security of Labour Market Insiders

Abstract

Th e sovereign debt crisis in the Eurozone and increased pressures for 'structural reform' have led to a period of intensive change in labour market policy in Southern Europe. Examining the cases of Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy, this article focuses on the security of labour market insiders, a key group in labour markets that is highly segmented. Th e security of labour market insiders is conceptualised as consisting of security in employment (protection against dismissals) and security in unemployment (protection against drops in income provided by unemployment insurance and assistance). Using changes in national laws, the article charts and compares labour market change along these two dimensions across these four Southern European countries. Because labour

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

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La centralización de la gobernanza territorial en las políticas activas del mercado de trabajo en España durante la Gran Recesión (2011-2016)

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South-North Labour Migration Within the Crisis-Affected European Union: New Patterns, New Contexts and New Challenges

“…In addition, the fragmentation of the labour markets deepened during the economic crisis as a result of the structural reforms carried out by Southern European countries under pressure from fi nancial markets and from international institutions and creditor countries within the European Union. Deregulation of the labour market aimed initially at boosting job creation has resulted in increasing temporality and instability of the most vulnerable categories of the economically active population, such as the young and women (Gutiérrez 2014 ;Moreira et al 2015 ). On the other hand, the heavy dependence of Southern EU economies on labour-intensive and low-productivity jobs has also had (Fernández 2014 ).…”