Work in the new era
Welcome to the next world, a world where work is not what it used to be. No more fear of losing your job and joining the unemployment queue. Gone is the anguish of missing the metro and arriving late, or the frustration of having to accept meaningless assignments, gruelling conditions and low wages. Thanks to a dizzying post-pandemic recovery, the balance of power has shifted: employees are now in a position to have their voices heard and – at least in part – to stipulate their conditions. This can be seen in the recruitment difficulties affecting all eurozone countries for the last two years. Salaries are also on the rise, though these increases do not match price increases. Another indication is the boom in remote work, which would have been unthinkable in many countries before Covid struck. A revolution is shaking up the world of work, but as with any sudden change, there is a downside.
Main findings:
- Unemployment is clearly falling, but it has not disappeared, and there are still many who remain excluded.
- Remote work offers more freedom to employees, but it comes at the cost of increased isolation and the breakdown of organised labour.
- Covid has also been a formidable accelerator of the platformisation of our economies, with starkly negative impacts on the working conditions of uberised workers. Here too we see the advent of a highly fragmented world of work.
- Finally, by sharply raising key interest rates, the ECB is determined to hit the brakes. To curb inflation, the central bankers want to slow down activity, at the cost of a future increase in unemployment. For the time being, their effectiveness is limited. Despite a slowdown in activity, employment is showing resilience, to the point of shaking the firmly anchored certainties of economists, who are losing faith in their mathematical models. Will this new world of work taking shape be a mere parenthesis? Or does it foreshadow a lasting upheaval?
Stories
While many effects are still unclear, or the result of processes that are still ongoing, the pandemic has had a significant impact on the world of work. Together with six other EDJNet newsrooms, Openpolis looked at the current state of play, focusing on remote work.
March 28, 2023
Several countries face labour shortages, as terminated contracts peak in Spain, France and Italy, and labour force turnover continues to grow.
March 28, 2023
The climate and Covid crises have led more and more workers - especially younger ones - to question the meaning of their work, resulting in "quiet quitting" and loss of motivation.
March 27, 2023
The unemployment rate is low in many European countries, thanks, however, to a decrease in productivity that could become a problem in the near future.
March 27, 2023
Delivery, transport, but also business services: more and more workers are opting for self-employed status by using online platforms to obtain assignments. This is a common phenomenon throughout the European Union.
March 27, 2023
The Covid crisis has accelerated the rise of telework in all European countries, in all sectors of activity and all company sizes. This has benefited employees and companies, whose satisfaction and productivity levels have increased. But it also risks creating a digital divide between "teleworkable" jobs and those that are not.
March 27, 2023
Employers are desperate to hire. All over Europe, the small ads that flourish in restaurant windows are turning yellow for lack of interested candidates - to the great annoyance of bosses. But the complaints go far beyond the hotel and restaurant sector.
March 27, 2023
Which regions have the highest percentage of young people who are not working, not attending any school, nor engaged in any internship or apprenticeship? Eurostat data leaves no doubt: the regions with the highest proportion of NEETs in Europe are in Italy, particularly in the south.
March 21, 2023
The data unit
Catherine André (Alternatives Economiques, coordinator) is Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Alternatives Economiques. A French graduate of Sciences-Po Paris and the London School of Economics, she has cofounded Voxeurop, speaks several languages and worked at Courrier international, Sciences et Vie Economie, and L’Expansion.
