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How Far from Full Employment? The European Unemployment Problem Revisited

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Abstract

This paper analyses deviations from full employment in EU countries, compared with the US and the UK. We apply the Beveridge (full-employment-consistent) rate of unemployment (BECRU), derived from the unemployment-vacancies relationship. The BECRU is the level of unemployment that minimises the non-productive use of labour. Based on a novel dataset for the period 1970-2022, we find full employment episodes in selected EU countries (Germany, Sweden, Austria, Finland) during the 1970s. The European unemployment problem emerged in the 1980s and 1990s, as Beveridgean full employment gaps increased. In the run-up to the global financial crisis, full employment gaps declined, then increased during the Great Recession. Slack in labour markets increased initially during the pandemic. Labour markets became tighter when recovering from the COVID-19 crisis, but few countries hit full employment. Panel regressions highlight that hysteresis, labour market institutions, structural factors, macroeconomic factors and political factors contribute to explaining full employment gaps.

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  • Meryem Gökten & Philipp Heimberger & Andreas Lichtenberger, 2024. "How Far from Full Employment? The European Unemployment Problem Revisited," wiiw Working Papers 245, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
    • Handle: RePEc:wii:wpaper:245
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Full employment; unemployment; vacancies; EU; UK; US;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E6 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook
    • J63 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search

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