Long-term Employment and the Restructuring of the Labour Market in Europe

Abstract

There is a widespread view that the permanent employment, associated with traditional employment patterns, has been fundamentally undermined with the advent of the ‘new economy’. Industrial restructuring and occupational change is said to have given rise to more precarious forms of employment characterized by insecure short-term jobs. Such widely held public perceptions are challenged by the analyses of long-term employment and industrial, occupational and compositional change in the European workforce. Contrary to the positions of Beck, Castells and Sennet and a host of high-profile commentators, the statistical evidence strongly suggests that contemporary labour market change in the European Union is moving in the opposite direction with significant increase in longterm employment across the member states.