Labor Market Measures in the Crisis and the Convergence of Social Models

Following the GDP decreases resulting from the severe economic crisis, EU member states experienced, each to a different extent, higher levels of unemployment. However, the implementation of so-called anticrisis measures limited such increases in unemployment – in some cases they were not as high as expected – in the majority of EU member states. Intending to minimize the impact of the downturn in social terms and support both companies and employees, the EU took a number of actions to drive the economic recovery and coordinate EU member states’ public interventions, with member states either adapting existing labor market policies or introducing new ones. In the context, the majority of member states launched ad hoc comprehensive “anticrisis packages” consisting in a wide range of public policy tools aimed at reducing the impact of the crisis on the labor market.