This paper asks whether and if so, how the pattern of reform in labour market policies has been changing in the EU member states since 2010 when EU policies shifted towards fiscal austerity; and whether and if so, what role can be identified for the EU in shaping these patterns.
Pressures for reforms in labour market and unemployment policies have been present for several decades. In western Europe, the emphasis shifted from passive income support, and job protection towards creating incentives for remaining in the labour force and employable in increasingly ‘tertiarised’ economies (Clasen and Clegg 2013). A requirement for this logic of labour market policies to work was, however, that jobs were created. The current context of austerity in Europe has not only put further pressures on public expenditures and tax revenues but also has been held responsible for the substantial increase in unemployment, thus undermining a fundamental condition for the success of these ‘new’ labour market policies.
The question of how the global crisis and the recession that followed from it have been affecting welfare states has already become the subject of several studies and publications. However, most of these studies were published too early for any empirical investigation of the actual effects of austerity policies to be possible or have been focusing on the effects of new economic governance in the EU and the austerity it embeds has just started emerging with analysis focusing to some extent on ‘Europeanisation’ and to some extent on the effects on the patterns of reforms (policy outputs).
This paper uses empirical evidence from several case-studies of EU member states which have been representative of different ideal types of labour market regimes but also facing variable EU pressures for austerity. It thus maps changes and attempts to identify how EU pressures have been shaping the pattern of reform.
