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Nordic labour market models facing pandemic crisis


The project study labour market consequences of the COVID 19 epidemic. What are the impact and adjustments made to the labour market, its institutions, the regulations and measures used?

Cooperating with researchers at the universities of Gothenburg and Aalborg, we will examine how the Danish, Norwegian and Swedish labour markets tackles and adjust to the consequences of the corona epidemic.

We compare the impact of the crisis as it unfolds in time, and the national responses to it. Institutions and actors in these labour markets share many similarities, but regulations differ in important ways.

It is divided into five work packages (WP).

  • WP1 and WP2’s core questions study the impact of the labour market shock on mobility flows, employment/unemployment, wages and earnings.
  • Core questions in WP3 is to what extent their capacity for crisis management through coordination of macro-economic policies, aggregate wage setting, and social policies is intact, and the extent to which social dialogue is invoked in shaping eventual reforms in labour market, social policies and institutions.
  • WP4 focuses on whether and how specific policy instruments and institutions, such as temporary lay-off schemes, employment protection regulation, etc. become subject to change, and how the national paths of adjustment in policies and institutions is influenced by national differences in the depth and trajectories of the crisis, and/or by variations in the extent of policy concertation.
  • Finally, WP5 study attitudes and preferences of individuals in different positions in the labour market, their support for or disapproval of different policy schemes.