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Measurement of Job Quality: Latest developments from the EC side. Meeting on the measurement of quality of employment (14-16 October 2009, Geneva, Switzerland) Matteo Governatori European Commission DG Employment – Employment Analysis. EU concept of job quality still valid.
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Measurement of Job Quality:Latest developments from the EC side Meeting on the measurement of quality of employment (14-16 October 2009, Geneva, Switzerland) Matteo Governatori European Commission DG Employment – Employment Analysis
EU concept of job quality still valid • Two Commission Communications (COM(2001) 313 and COM(2003) 728) have provided a broad framework for promoting quality in work • This includes 10 dimensions, each of them quantified by specific indicators • In 2003 improving quality and productivity at work becomes an overarching objective of the EES • The framework has not been revised since and it is still valid today • …and job quality has remained an important concern for the EU over past years (e.g. EPSCO Council January 2007)
JQ is one of many priorities in the employment field • Most of the selected indicators have been included in the Compendium used to monitor Member States’ progress relative to the Employment Guidelines, • …whereas the downturn in the early 2000 has somewhat shifted attention towards employment growth • …and the interplay between flexicurity, which has become the main framework for employment policies, and JQ has not yet been fully spelled out • Hence, the EU JQ concept has not been used as such to monitor progress in the Member States
Commission Interest on JQ still strong • However, concerns have been raised that substantial job creation registered in the EU until 2008 have gone together with a deterioration of working conditions for a large share of such jobs, calling for renewed efforts to assess job quality developments • A chapter on JQ was included in the 2008 Employment in Europe report • The chapter put the EU job quality framework in the perspective of the broader socio-economic literature and put forward a number of suggestions to complement it • A taxonomy of job quality models in the EU based on such an enlarged framework was then presented
JQ in Employment in Europe • Absence of indicators on wages, work intensity and work organisation were pointed out as shortcoming of the EU framework,… • together with the inclusion of economy-wide variables, which do not correspond to characteristics of specific jobs • The proposed enlarged framework is centred on four dimensions: Socio-economic security; Training; Working conditions; Reconciliation and gender balance • …and, as illustrated by Principal Component Analysis, allows for a better characterisation of different job quality models in the EU
JQ in recent work by ETUC • The EU Trade Unions confederation (ETUC) has also made an attempt to measure JQ trends across EU Member States (Leschke and Watt, 2008) • A Job Quality index (JQI) is calculated as a composite of a set of sub-indices corresponding to six dimensions of the concept: wages, non-standard forms of employment, work-life balance and working time, working conditions and job security, training and career advancement, collective interest representation and voice/participation. • The index is used to compare JQ outcomes across countries and over time (2000-2007)