Youth labour markets in the Southern European Union, 2009-2021: deciphering trajectories of resilience through a decade of consecutive crises

ABSTRACT

This paper adopts a Geographical Political Economy perspective to critically investigate how successive economic crises occurring from 2009 onwards (including the COVID-19 pandemic) affected youth labour markets in Greece, Italy, and Spain. To do so, it first calculates a Resilience Index for three youth employment types (total, part-time, and temporary employment). It then employs Shift-Share Analysis to quantify the effect of national trends, sectoral dynamism, and local characteristics upon total youth employment changes. After identifying those regions that have exhibited resilience or lack thereof and the underlying reasons for their trajectories, the paper outlines a typology of regional youth labour markets’ resilience and examines their dynamics. Specifically, the paper examines the effect of path dependencies, structural deficiencies, and labour polarization on resilience outcomes, concluding that each has steered in different ways the regional youth labour markets examined towards either bouncing back shortly after recessive shocks or developing mechanisms of adaptation amidst recession. Closing, the paper discusses the role of work flexibilization in shaping resilience, finding that whilst it may contribute to coping/adaptation capacities under certain conditions it does not guarantee them.

KEYWORDS:

• 2008/09 Global Crisis
• pandemic crisis
• flexible work
• Italy
• Greece
• Spain

Acknowledgments

The first author acknowledges the contribution of the Act “Strengthening human resources through the implementation of doctoral research - Sub-Action 2: Granting of the IKY (State Scholarship Foundation) scholarships to doctoral candidates of the Universities of Greece” through the Operational Programme “Human Resources Development, Education and Lifelong Learning”, 2014-2020, funded by Greece and the European Union (European Social Fund). The third author (Kostas Gourzis) acknowledges the contribution of the project “Collaborative and sharing workspaces: policies for youth in EEA peripheral regions (Cowork4YOUTH)” funded by the governments of Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway through the EEA and Norway grants fund for Youth Employment (https://www.cowork4youth.org/). The fourth author (Stelios Gialis) acknowledges the contribution of the project “A Place for Youth in Mediterranean EEA: Resilient and Sharing Economies for NEETs (YOUTHShare)”, funded by the governments of Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway through the EEA and Norway grants fund for Youth Employment (www.youthshare-project.org).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Except for Ceuta and Melilla (in Spain) and Bolzano (in Italy), due to lack of data. Also, due to limited data validity, Piedmont and Aosta Valley (in Italy) are merged.

2. With the exception of Greece, which continued to see its GDP fall until 2018.

3. Found at https://ec.europa.eu/info/research-and-innovation/statistics/performance-indicators/regional-innovation-scoreboard.

4. Spain’s Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism, Andalusia. Accessed at: www.investinspain.org/en/regions/andalucia/industrias-destacadas?#nameRegion

5. Spain’s Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism, Navarre. Accessed at: www.investinspain.org/en/regions/navarra/industrias-destacadas?#nameRegion

6. Data drawn from Eurostat’s Labour Force Surveys. Due to limited space, data are only available upon request.