IES VIEWPOINT: Towards a more entrepreneurial workforce?
One feature of recent UK employment which has attracted attention, but has yet to be fully explained is the growth in self-employment. In 2011, it hit a ‘record’ level of four million and politicians have been quick to hail this as a harbinger of David Cameron’s ‘age of the entrepreneur’. Should this trend be seen as a fundamental change of workforce culture towards Dragon’s Denstyle entrepreneurship, helping offset the impact of austerity in the public sector? It’s too early to be sure, but there are good reasons for scepticism.
SMEs and their strategies for coping with the recession
The economic recession of the past two years has hit businesses hard across the European Union. However, it is arguably small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that are more exposed to the effects of recession, due to the fact that they have fewer resources to enable them to bridge difficult times and may find it harder to gain access to credit to help them weather temporary difficulties. IES has recently carried out a comparative study looking at the sorts of coping strategies that SMEs across Europe have put into place to help them to cope with the recession.
Greening the European economy
How to ensure that Europe’s economy is in a fit state to face up to the future challenges of alternative energy sourcing and the demands of climate change is an issue that has been steadily gaining importance on the political and social policy agenda in recent years. The future green economy is something that touches on many social and employment policy areas, including labour market planning, skills and competence building, and the protection of vulnerable social groups. In this article, we review the main findings of recent IES research looking at EU policy in this area.
Peer reviews in EU social protection and social inclusion
IES has, since 2006, been involved in a consortium led by Austrian partners (ÖSB Consulting) to deliver a programme of ‘Peer Reviews in Social Inclusion’, on behalf of the European Commission (since 2008, the Peer Review programme has been extended to cover the area of ‘social protection’, ie policies towards pensions, healthcare and long-term care).
Comparing national approaches to managing restructuring
The current difficult economic climate has made an impact all around the EU – as we are seeing in this issue of employment studies – causing businesses to close and resulting in workers losing their jobs. The way in which governments, public agencies, social partners and other involved parties are managing this differs throughout the EU.