Presentation by Jorge Cabrita, Research Officer, Eurofound on the occasion of the EESC LMO Conference on 28 September 2012 in Lisbon, Portugal

1. Social dialogue as a tool to solve
Labour Market problems
***
Evidence from two comparative studies
Jorge Cabrita, Research Officer
Working conditions and industrial relations unit
Lisbon, 28 September 2012

2. What is Eurofound?
• Tripartite EU agency.
• Established 1975, EC
Council regulation
• Comparative socio-
economic research.
• Headquarters in Dublin and
office in Brussels.

3. Outline
• Working poor
• Young workers
• Concluding remarks

4. In-work poverty
• 8% of employed population in the EU27 is at risk of poverty
• ~ 17,000,000 individuals .
• Young workers, lower education, single parents, self-
employed, part-time and temporary contracts
• Public policies, if any, are embedded in policies dealing with
poverty in general
• There are reasons to believe that the crisis impacted
negatively
• Social partners are in general aware but not a priority

5. Young workers
• Difficulties to enter the LM – “scarring” effect
• More likely to be in fixed term contracts + part-time +
temporary agency work
• Amplification by the economic crisis – restructuring &
unemployment
• Keeping young people out of the LM – professional and
personal development consequences
• Top priority for social partners

6. Social dialogue helping young workers
• Austria – (2008) tripartite agreement set up a re-employment scheme for
young workers in SMEs and temporary agencies who lost their jobs;
• Bulgaria – social partners and government agreed on increasing
apprenticechips and incentives for employers to train young workers.
• Germany – Deutche Telekom: single employer agreement guaranteeing
permanent employment after apprenticeships.
- Volkswagen: agreed to expand the apprenticeships
programme and guarantee of employment at the end of the
training.

7. Concluding remarks
• What reforms? Partial vs comprehensive?
 The overlap(s) between policies: labour market,
education, health , social support, etc.
• What is the role of social dialogue?
 Need to understand better what works;
 Need for exchange of experiences
 Important role of institutions
• Company, sectoral, regional, national, EU level

8. Food for thought
• “Social dialogue must remain the fundamental
coordination method and is essential for the European
social model. (…) Those who believe that social dialogue
contradicts economic competitiveness should think
again.”
László Andor, Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs
and Inclusion, Brussels, 6 September 2012

9. Thank you!
Obrigado!
Jorge.cabrita@eurofound.europa.eu