EU labour markets in the pandemic: unemployment only part of the story
The good news is that unemployment has only risen modestly so far; the bad news is that hours worked have plummeted.
Politics
Analysis and debate on European and national politics, democracy, the rule of law, parties and elections, and Europe’s place in the world.
Taking Europe’s pandemic pulse
A tentative growth in trust shows Covid-19 has not yet torn the social fabric of Europe.
Mind the gap
The digitalisation of work, despite its potential, risks becoming an impersonal means by which employers tilt the balance of power.
Collective-bargaining rights for platform workers
Nicola Countouris and Valerio De Stefano
The pioneering Danish collective agreement on platform-based domestic workers has been vitiated by a misguided ruling by its competition authority.
Neglected, sacrificed: older persons during the Covid-19 pandemic
Older persons have suffered a terrible toll from the coronavirus—now countries must invest in long-term care.
Industry 4.0: the transformation of work?
‘Industry 4.0’ may be neither so extensive nor advanced as those in whom it arouses hopes and fears.
No Realpolitik please: Europe must support the Belarusian people
Proactive engagement to help overcome the stalemate and firm signalling that any autocratic crackdown will trigger strong and effective measures are needed.
The Covid-19 wake-up call to buttress social investment
Anton Hemerijck and Robin Huguenot-Noël
The temptation to cut welfare expenditures to reduce deficits inflated by the pandemic must be resisted.
Making work fit for workers after Covid-19
The welfare state sought to protect workers from labour-market risks. After Covid-19, reduced working time and greater autonomy must be on the agenda.
Social democracy in one corner of the world
Branko Milanovic argues that ‘stop the world, we want to get off’ is no basis for a revival of progressive politics.
The European minimum wage will come—but how?
Torsten Müller and Thorsten Schulten
The principle of a European minimum wage is established. How it should be set is not.
Trade unions need new strategies
With employers on a decades-long offensive against labour, the balance of power which once secured social dialogue has been transformed.
Estonia top of the (digital) class
After the summer holidays, schools across Europe have been fretting about if and when they will have to switch back to digital distance learning—but not in Estonia.
Including the precariat
The coronavirus crisis has highlighted how the welfare state of the future must include the growing mass of precarious labour, especially among youth.
Shifting the burden: can Covid-19 do it for women’s unpaid work?
Lockdown conditions have put in question the disproportionate burden of unpaid work placed on women, evidence from Turkey shows.
Hazardous! Occupational safety and health in the care economy during the pandemic
Protecting the health and safety of all workers in the care economy is essential, but for this to become a reality major changes are needed.