Editorial

The dramatic impact of the Great Recession on European labour markets and unemployment is behind the rapid deterioration of young people’s living and working conditions. The economic crisis has had a strong asymmetric impact on EU countries, increasing the marked disparities between countries with regard to employment insecurity and unemployment. The differences observed reflect not only the degree to which countries were affected by the economic downturn, but also how countries responded to it, taking into consideration their different employment regimes, varieties of capitalism and policy responses (Chung et al., 2012; Lallement, 2011; Heyes, 2013).

Notwithstanding the differences between EU countries, young people have been disproportionately affected by the Great Recession, experiencing escalating unemployment, increasing employment insecurity and declining incomes. Young people aged 15–24, entering the labour market from school or university, have been hardest hit by unemployment, while those in the 25–34 age range, most of whom were already in the labour market, have seen an increase in unemployment and a further postponement of any prospect of a secure job (Chung et al., 2012; Dietrich, 2012).

Between 2008 and 2012, the average youth unemployment rate in the EU-27 for the 15–24 age range increased from 15.8 to 22.8 per cent, i.e. an average increase of 7 percentage points, though with major differences between countries. The only country where the youth unemployment rate declined was Germany; in Austria, Luxembourg and Belgium the youth unemployment rate remained relatively stable; while in Malta, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Romania and Denmark the increase in the youth unemployment rate ranged from 2.0 to 6.1 percentage points.

By contrast, 16 countries experienced youth unemployment rate increases above the EU-27 average, including the majority of the New Member States, the southern European countries, and Ireland. In Hungary, Estonia, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia, the increase was slightly above average, but in all other countries the youth unemployment rate increase was double or more the average EU youth unemployment rate increase: in Latvia, Italy, Lithuania, Slovakia and Bulgaria the increase was 14–16 percentage points; in Ireland, Portugal and Cyprus 17–18 points; while in Spain (28.6) it was up by four times the EU average and in Greece (33.2) almost five times.

The youth unemployment rate observed in 2012 reflects the different dynamics of youth unemployment brought about by the economic crisis and the starting positions of the different countries on the eve of the Great Recession. The countries with the lowest youth unemployment rate were Germany, the Netherlands and Austria (below 10 per cent), followed by Denmark and Malta (around 14 per cent). The countries in the middle were Luxembourg, Finland, the Czech Republic, Belgium, Slovenia, Estonia, the UK, and Romania, where the youth unemployment rate ranged from 18.1 to 22.7 per cent. By contrast the youth unemployment rate in the other 14 countries was above the EU-27 average (22.8 per cent): in Sweden, France, Lithuania, Poland, Cyprus, Hungary, Bulgaria and Latvia rates ranged from 23.7 per cent to 28.4 per cent; while the highest youth unemployment rate levels were observed in Ireland (30.4 per cent), Slovakia (34.0 per cent), Italy (35.3 per cent), Portugal (37.7 per cent), Spain (53.2 per cent) and Greece (55.3 per cent).

For those young people in employment, conditions deteriorated, as reflected by the increase in the percentage of temporary and especially part-time jobs. The incidence of temporary work among young people (15–24) increased from 40.2 per cent in 2008 to 42.1 per cent in 2012 within the EU-27 and from 49.7 per cent in 2008 to 51.3 per cent in 2012 in the euro area. With the exception of Bulgaria, Denmark, Germany, Cyprus and Luxembourg, all EU-27 countries saw an increase of the share of temporary work among young people. The rates in countries already presenting a very high share of this type of employment in 2008 reached extremely high levels in 2012: Slovenia (72.0 per cent), Poland (66.4 per cent), Spain (62.4 per cent), Portugal (56.5 per cent), Sweden (55.7 per cent), France (55.5 per cent), Italy (52.9 per cent) and the Netherlands (51.2 per cent).

The percentage of part-time work among young people increased in all EU-27 countries, from 26.3 per cent to 31.1 per cent in the EU-27 and from 25.8 per cent to 30.8 per cent in the euro area. Countries with a longstanding tradition of part-time work saw an increase of its incidence among young people, reaching extremely high levels in 2012 in Denmark (65.0 per cent), the Netherlands (76.7 per cent), and Sweden (48.5 per cent). But even countries with a previously low or moderate level of part-time work experienced major increases, as seen for instance in Ireland (48.2 per cent) and Spain (35.6 per cent).

While at the beginning of the crisis – late 2008/early 2009 – the EU and its Member States favoured measures counteracting the crisis through promoting public investment, expanding social benefits and active labour market policies and taking specific measures directed towards including and supporting young people, policies changed with the advent of austerity in the wake of the European sovereign debt crisis in 2010 (Degryse, 2012). The wave of austerity policies aggravated the situation at least in the short run, with youth unemployment rates in many countries soaring to unprecedented levels. As part of these austerity policies aimed at reducing budget deficits, several countries adopted hard-hitting measures reducing social security (including unemployment benefits), thereby further compromising young people’s already limited social protection. In addition, the deregulation of employment protection in several countries contributed to a feeling of employment insecurity (Clauwaert and Schömann, 2012; Heyes, 2013). Austerity measures also impacted education budgets, making it more difficult for young people to continue their education. Last but not least, declining family incomes undermined family support for young people during the recession years. Supply-side policies enjoyed only limited success, while demand-side policies in practice often led to temporary or precarious jobs.

How have young people responded to this deterioration of their conditions? From desperately seeking exit strategies from economies in deep recession to voice strategies in social movements, youth responses have varied considerably. In some cases, emigration might have been seen as a positive active choice, while in other cases as a desperate move. In some cases, youth voices might have been expressed alongside conventional channels of political participation and trade union action, while in other cases they have been combined with autonomous action, or have seen young people engaging in social movements more or less connected (or disconnected) with conventional channels (Della Porta and Diani, 2011). Which factors have triggered the different reactions? Which conditions or combination of conditions (social, economic, institutional, political and cultural) have favoured the different types of responses? How diverse were the responses, bearing in mind the heterogeneity of young people with regard to their labour market situation, their social background and qualifications, their social networks, and their participation in political parties, affiliation in trade unions, etc. These questions have been highlighted in various studies and deserve further attention. In addition a crucial issue is how trade unions have responded to these challenges in terms of their organizing strategies, agendas and actions. How have they embraced (or not) youth social movements? In this respect there is a clear lack of studies.

This issue of Transfer brings together an unprecedented collection of articles shedding light on three different issues: the economic, social and labour market challenges facing young people brought about by the Great Recession, with a first article looking at the EU as a whole and a second one comparing Nordic and southern European countries; the responses of European young people to those challenges, with one article on youth social protest and voice in Europe with a particular focus on southern Europe and a second article on youth migration intentions with a focus on the New Member States; and finally trade union responses to youth challenges with two articles taking different approaches and focusing on the experience of different countries.

Youth unemployment and its links to macroeconomic variables during the Great Recession in Europe is the subject of the article by Hans Dietrich. The author argues that youth unemployment is a multifaceted phenomenon, as it concerns a very heterogeneous stratum of population. To account for this complexity, Dietrich adopts a flexible framework defining four measurements of youth unemployment: the standardly defined youth unemployment rate, the share of young unemployed in the total youth population, the share of young people not in employment, education or training (the NEET ratio), and the ratio between youth (15–24) and adult (25–64) unemployment rates. Applying a linear regression approach to the European Union Labour Force Survey, Dietrich finds that the responsiveness of the four measurements of youth unemployment to macroeconomic variables decreases in the order in which they are listed above. In fact, Dietrich argues that the relative risk of unemployment for young people (15–24) compared to that of those aged 25 years and older has substantially increased during the last decade, independent from the business cycles, national educational levels, or sectoral shifts.

The author proposes a number of policy responses in the areas of social background and educational choice, education and training, employment protection, and active labour market policies to facilitate youth employment and school-to-work transitions.

Comparing the Nordic and southern European countries, Per Kongshøj Madsen, Oscar Molina, Jesper Møller and Mariona Lozano study the role of flexicurity for labour market transitions of young workers. Providing a rather sceptical view after studying the European Union Labour Force Survey, the authors reason that labour market policies implemented under the flexicurity paradigm have only minimally helped to mitigate the growing dualization of EU labour markets. Prospects are seen as particularly bleak for workers in southern Europe who appear to be having to bear the burden of flexibility without being adequately compensated by security measures. The analysis also shows that young workers in southern Europe are exceptionally negatively affected by the limited capacity of the flexicurity policies, and the security measures in particular, to cushion the negative effects of the Great Recession. The authors therefore argue for a more pre-emptive policy approach, focusing on preventing long-term unemployment. This includes promoting part-time rather than temporary employment contracts and better integrating young people into the labour market, using such methods as apprenticeship schemes and work placements integrated into school curricula.

The article by Maria da Paz Campos Lima and Antonio Martín Artiles studies the social mobilization of European young people in the context of adverse economic developments and austerity conditions during the Great Recession. The article adopts a two-pronged approach by combining quantitative and qualitative analyses of youth responses. First, applying a binary logistic model to the 2010 European Social Survey data, the authors identify the determinants of youth participation in protests across the European Union. Among a wide range of studied factors, the authors identify age (between 18 and 34, and 18–24 in particular), intermediate or university education, left-leaning political preferences, membership in trade unions, and in southern Europe also not having voted in elections as key mobilization factors. Socio-economic variables turned out to be significant as well, although the significance of individual labour market status was found to bear relatively less weight. Secondly, a qualitative analysis of media coverage of youth responses confirms that youth mobilization has mainly been driven by dissatisfaction with socio-economic developments and the functioning of democracy. The analysis also shows that young people have voiced concrete demands primarily for improvements in working and living conditions, but also concerns regarding social rights, democracy, and austerity policies.

Migration represents another way in which European young people responded to disparate socio-economic conditions in an enlarged European Union during the Great Recession. In their article, Martin Kahanec and Brian Fabo use the Eurobarometer data and probabilistic econometric models to measure the short- and long-term intentions of young citizens (aged 15–35) from the New Member States to move to another Member State of the European Economic Area. The authors find that those not yet married and males with children exhibit a higher propensity to migrate, although these are also the people with more temporary than permanent migratory intentions. From the perspective of the brain drain debate, the authors report that age affects migration intentions negatively, but educational attainment has no effect on intentions to emigrate. For those envisaging working abroad, however, completion of education (if after the 16th birthday) seems to lead to long-term (at least five years) but not permanent migration plans. These findings indicate that among the citizens of New Member States migration is considered at certain stages of an individual or household life cycle as a viable alternative, but the intentions to stay abroad are primarily temporary. This appears to provide for good prospects for circular migration.

The article by Kurt Vandaele explores youth structures in five trade union confederations in Ireland, the Netherlands, and Sweden to argue that the struggle of European young people during the Great Recession might have led youth structures to impact the union agenda. In particular, the analysis reveals that the adverse labour market situation of European young people could offer opportunities for young people to steer union agendas better to match their preferences and address their needs. However, the capacity of youth structures to do so is not only conditional on a union’s age structure and governance system but should also be understood in their particular socio-economic contexts and political opportunity structures. Nevertheless, the youth structures have been able to manoeuvre within their power and opportunities structures to reorient union agendas towards specific collective bargaining arrangements and building alliances to support their membership.

In his article, Torsten Geelan studies the responses of trade unions in Denmark and the UK to young people’s difficult labour market situation during the Great Recession. The article first looks at unions’ power capacities, specifically focusing on their communicative power with respect to young people. In the next step the author analyses how these capacities, interacting with the structure of contextual opportunities, affect the forms and scope of trade union responses. Geelan substantiates the link between infrastructural and network resources trade unions control and the way they exercise power vis-à-vis the government. The author also finds that the type of government influences the mode of mobilization: under right-wing governments demonstrations and protests are the primary choice, while under left-wing governments more communicative forms of action prevail.

In the News and Background section of this issue Margherita Bussi reports on the social partners’ negotiations on youth employment, Torsten Geelan on the new UK union initiative, Union Solidarity International, and Roland Erne on the rejection by Irish public sector workers, in April 2013, of a proposed new national collective bargaining agreement.