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VAM-Velferd, arbeid og migrasjon

Nordic models facing crisis: Implications for labour market adjustment and inclusion.

Awarded: NOK 5.0 mill.

This project aims to compare the implications of the global crisis for workforce adjustment at company level and for perceptions of employment security and risk in the Nordic labour forces. While the Nordic models won praise for their ability to adapt and recover after the homemade crises of the 1980-90s, the recent crisis has to varying degree faced the Nordic models with a severe test of their capacity to cope with a massive external demand shock. Our aim is to conduct comparative studies of the social actors? roles in company decision-making (in selected branches) when it comes to handling large scale adjustments in production and workforces. To what extent does the foreseen interplay between income security arrangements, labour market regulations an d policies, and industrial relations actor strategies at company level contribute to maintaining high levels of mobility, participation, and inclusion in the labour market? How do economic considerations, power relations, and norms of justice, equity and seniority interact in shaping decisions concerning dismissals, work-sharing, cost-cutting, job-protection and training in company workforce adjustments? How do such selection processes affect vulnerable employee groups? Case studies of such issues will be combined with survey studies of variations in individual perceptions of employment risk and security across countries and groups. How do such variations correspond with personal experience and coping strategies, and how are they influenced by (national ) variations in public institutions and policy responses to the crisis? By comparing how labour market institutions and actors react to the crisis, shape employment outcomes, and manage or not to prevent undesirable consequences in the Nordic countries th e study can generate academically and politically useful insight.

Funding scheme:

VAM-Velferd, arbeid og migrasjon