Reforms of employment protection legislation in Europe in times of crisis: was the labour market segmentation gap brought closer together?

• Autor(a) principal: Carvalho, Melissa Anne Vaz
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10071/19496
• topic: Labour market segmentation; Employment protection legislation; Insiders; Outsiders; Segmentação do mercado de trabalho; Legislação de proteção ao emprego

The labour market is disproportionately tormented by unemployment and economic downturns, since it is segmented into "insiders" which enjoy job protection and "outsiders" which do not to the same extent. The study of this dissertation follows the line of labour market segmentation and tries to understand if modifications to Employment Protection Legislation (EPL) since 2008 have altered the position of insiders and outsiders in the labour market of 26 countries under Excessive Deficit Procedures by the European Union. The question is: Have EPL policies favoured insiders or outsiders, or has EPL been reduced on both ends, in turn worsening protection on all forms of employment? By retrieving extensive data on 353 policies implemented in the field over the past 9 years, through the use of detailed LABREF database, the reforms were analysed if they enacted an increase “in favour” of insiders or outsiders protection or “against” such increase. This dissertation exposes if said reforms in each country have weakened or strengthen security for the two segments, as well as, discusses the changing role that HRM will have resulting from the modifications in EPL. It also shows that most changes in EPL were triggered in the years of highest recession and how some countries made most changes to their EPL due to the pressure from external intervention. It begins by giving a theoretical framework around the economic insider-outsider theory, EPL and the discussion around liberalization. Later interprets the findings and finally, debates results.