Policy-makers reacted quickly to the crisis, with a balanced approach with respect to the main beneficiaries of those policy efforts. While a significant share of policies enhanced the rights of workers and increased the support offered to jobseekers, there was also significant effort dedicated to policy measures in which firms were the main beneficiary. After peaking in 2009/2010, however, these policy efforts decreased significantly thereafter. Most of the attention of policy-makers went towards structural labour market reforms, together with interventions changing ALMP or wage rules, including collective bargaining. The report highlights the need for constant and continuous dedication to the improvement of the resilience of labour market by policy-makers, even if this requires higher levels of public expenditure in the short term. A combination of policy measures which provide employers with enough flexibility to adjust their demand for labour together with interventions that improve working conditions and increase the support given to jobseekers will provide the only path for policy-makers across the EU to enable labour markets to recover from their current sluggish state and resume a pattern of sustainable employment growth and improving working conditions.

Acknowledgements 11 Introduction 13 1. Inventory overview 15 2. Labour market regulation 23 2.1 Non-standard employment 26 2.1.1 Part-time employment 28 2.1.2 Self-employment 29 2.1.3 Fixed-term employment 30 2.1.4 The drivers of non-standard employment policy measures 31 Monograph examples 32 2.2 Dismissals 35 Monograph examples 38 2.3 Labour market regulation: Other categories 39 Monograph examples 40 2.4 Concluding remarks 41 3. Active labour market policies 43 3.1 Public expenditure distribution across ALMP categories 47 3.2 Public Employment Services 52 Monograph examples 53 3.3 Training 54 Monograph examples 57 3.4 Employment incentives 58 Monograph examples 60 3.5 Direct job creation 62 3.6 ALMPs targeting youth and migrants 64 Monograph examples 66 3.7 The impact of ALMPs 68 3.8 Concluding remarks 70 4. Unemployment benefits 71 4.1 Unemployment benefits measures and trends 71 Monograph examples 79 Little change in Germany since the Hartz IV reform 80 The 2014 unemployment benefits reform in the Netherlands 80 The unemployment insurance system reforms in France 81 Changes in unemployment benefits in the United Kingdom 83 Two-phase changes in Spain’s unemployment benefits system 84 The case of Greece 85 The Fornero reform in Italy 85 I reland’s efforts to reduce the costs of unemployment benefits 86 Changes in the unemployment insurance scheme in Latvia 87 4.2 Concluding remarks 88 5. Wages 91 5.1 Wage measures and wage trends 91 Monograph examples 94 5.2 Collective bargaining 96 5.2.1 Trends in collective bargaining 96 Monograph examples 98 5.2.2 Wage impacts of collective bargaining 100 5.3 Minimum wage 102 5.3.1 Minimum wage and wage indexation trends 102 5.3.2 Impact of minimum wages 104 Monograph examples 107 5.4 Concluding remarks 108 6. Public sector 111 6.1 Public sector and public administration measures and trends 111 Monograph examples 118 6.2 Concluding remarks 119 Conclusion 121 Annexes A. Inventory user guide 127 B. Technical appendix 130 (ⅰ) Partial rank correlations 130 (ⅱ) Methodology 132 (ⅲ) Robustness checks 134 C. The ILO inventory and other databases 135 (ⅰ) The inventory and the LABREF database 135 (ⅱ) Fixed-term employment 139 (ⅲ) Dismissals 141 D. The ILO inventory and the political cycle 142 E. Croatia 144 F. List of country acronyms (EU-28) 146 References 147