The five sessions of the Module are designed to develop understanding and knowledge of the similarities and differences in the labour market characteristics of the European Member States and candidate countries, as well as the reasons for these similarities and differences in terms of the different regimes of labour market regulation, employment relations and training. These five sessions are briefly described below.
Globalization and restructuring
This part of the module will consider the meaning and impact of globalization and its role in accelerating restructuring: shocks, meta theories and changing paradigms. Implications for the EU and mechanisms of structural adjustment to global competition. Using a generic heuristic restructuring model to analyse drivers of change and predict the impact on employment at sector level; forecasting future skills needs from analysing the impact of restructuring on the level and range of skills needed in key occupations.
European labour markets: This session will compare the labour market characteristics of major EU economies and examine progress towards the Lisbon objectives in terms of levels of employment and issues like gender differences in labour market participation. Discussion will focus on explaining diversity in terms of differences in regimes of labour market regulation and their relation with economic structures as well as historical and cultural factors.
Strategies for Employment: This session will examine strategies for promoting employment from the OECD Jobs Strategy to ILO initiatives, and EU and APEC policies. EU strategies including the European Employment Strategy and the Luxembourg Process will be analysed in detail, along with the Lisbon objectives. National Action Plans for Employment will be compared across the EU, highlighting good practice in issues like labour market activation and their scope for transfer discussed.
Training and development: the role of training in European strategies in support of the Lisbon objectives. Structural differences in training regimes across the EU will be discussed in terms of state regulated versus market-led systems and in terms of workplace versus school-focussed systems. The different conceptions of competence across Europe will be presented along with attempts to reconcile these with a common European Qualifications Framework to promote labour mobility.
Employment relations and social dialogue: social dialogue arrangements at the European level and their role in determining employment and training policy. The diversity of social dialogue approaches will be compared across Europe – traditional typology of industrial relations systems and alternative conceptions based on the balance between concertation versus market approaches as tendencies present in all member states at all times, but in different proportions.