About Steve Coulter

Steve Coulter is Head of Communications at the European Trade Union Institute and a Visiting Fellow in the European Institute of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Click Here For The Brave New World Of Work

by Steve Coulter on 27th November 2018

Robert Solow famously remarked that the effects of the IT revolution were showing up everywhere except in the productivity statistics. Other economists suggested that full exploitation of a new technology can take a long time, perhaps decades. Well, one area now clearly showing the impact of IT and automation is the labour market. Technology is […]

The World(s) Of Work In Transition: Managing The ‘Megatrends’ Impacting Labour Markets And Society

by Steve Coulter on 31st May 2018

The French journalist Alphonse Karr once observed that we can either complain because rose bushes have thorns or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses. Karr was writing in the mid nineteenth century against a backdrop of industrialisation, revolution and cultural change in Europe, when human progress was both terrifying and exciting in equal measures. The […]

Europe Needs A Pay Rise And Europeans Want Good Jobs

by Steve Coulter on 18th April 2018

The financial and Eurozone crises are now fading into memory. Firm growth has returned to Europe. Jobs are being created and new companies formed. Things should be looking up at last. Why aren’t they? Several reasons. First, only some economies are growing, while others are stagnating or still shrinking. Second, the jobs recovery is largely […]

Zygmunt Bauman was a towering intellectual who saw and analysed – right up to his death in early 2017 – the great socio-political changes, often convulsive, in modern western society long before his peers. Here we highlight his prescient insights into what he dubbed ‘liquid modernity’ with 24 chapters on topics ranging from online loneliness via precarity/poverty/inequality to migration, fear of the ‘Other’ and the decline of the nation state. Chronicle of Crisis, 2011-16, written by one of the great chroniclers of our times, will be read and re-read for decades and more to come.

The Positive Economic Impact Of Germany's Statutory Minimum Wage

With the empirical analyses of the macroeconomic effects of the introduction of the statutory minimum wage in Germany, the IMK tries to determine the short-term and expected medium- to long-term growth, price and employment effects with the help of a macro-econometric model. As a result, economic growth tended to be stimulated by the introduction of the minimum wage. This was mainly due to the higher wages of the minimum wage beneficiaries and a spillover effect on adjoining wage groups. In particular, this benefited people whose low savings rate led to a particularly strong increase in real private consumption. The price increases triggered were negligible on a macroeconomic scale.

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Work in the platform economy

This paper presents a case study of the food delivery platform, Deliveroo, in Belgium in 2016-2018. The case offers insights on the nature of platform work, the workers who perform it, the preferences of workers, the strategy of the platforms, and the role of local regulations. Interestingly, Deliveroo in Belgium employed workers through an intermediary, SMart, and we also observed the termination of their co-operation in the period under analysis. Using administrative data provided by SMart and a survey of workers, we analyse patterns of work and also focus on pay.

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Energy scenario: Employment implications of the Paris Climate Agreement

This new report shows that the successful transition towards a low-carbon economy, as defined by the Paris Climate Agreement, is projected to result in a 1.1% growth in GDP and a 0.5% growth in employment, in the EU between now and 2030. This is compared to a ‘business as usual’ baseline forecast. Globally, China is also projected to benefit from a low-carbon transition, but the United States would experience a 3.4% drop in GDP, and a 1.6% decline in employment.

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Sustainable Equality Report. Well-being for everyone in a sustainable Europe

Our societies are in the midst of political, economic, social and ecological crises, which permanently feed into each other, and already undermine democracy. Progressive politics with a common and strong vision are crucially needed. Ahead of the next European elections, the Sustainable Equality Report championed by the S&D Group through its Progressive Society initiative addresses this need, resulting in more than 100 concrete policy proposals by thirty policy-makers and renowned experts.

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