Social partner responses to the economic crisis in Europe: Why collective bargaining makes a difference

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Vera Glassner

The second year of the economic crisis has had severe effects on the European labour market. The annual total unemployment rate for 2009 in the EU27 is estimated to be 9.1 %, with large differences between countries. The latest Eurostat figures (March 2010) indicate that total unemployment is highest in Latvia (over 22%), 19% in Spain, around 15% in Estonia and Lithuania and 13% in Ireland. This contrasts with comparably low levels of unemployment – between 4 and 6% – in the Netherlands, Austria and Luxemburg. A clear divide has also emerged with regard to unemployment growth in the course of 2009. Whereas in Latvia unemployment skyrocketed by almost 11 percentage points between January 2009 and 2010, and in Estonia and Ireland grew by 4.4 percentage points, in countries such as Germany, Belgium, Austria, France, Italy and Poland it remained rather stable, with increases of 0.3 to 1.4 percentage points during this period.

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