Ester, Peter

This report analyses European corporate practices in terms of working time flexibility as revealed by the European Company Survey 2009 (ECS 2009). Flexibility in working time is a central aspect of ongoing debates regarding boosting employment in the EU. Enabling employees to better balance their working time and domestic reponsibilities is seen as a key way of encouraging more citizens to enter and remain in the workforce. At the same time, greater working time flexibility on the part of companies – and hence, employees – can enable European enterprises to be more responsive to market demands, so boosting the Union’s competitiveness. An executive summary is available.

Working time arrangements can have a significant bearing on the efficiency and productivity of companies as well as the health, wellbeing and motivation of their employees. This report provides unique insight into the various working time flexibility arrangements currently in place in companies across Europe. It is based on analysing the findings of a large-scale, representative survey carried out in companies with 10 or more employees in 21 European countries in 2004-5. The report looks at whether and how countries differ in their application of flexible working time systems. It analyses the perceived impact of such arrangements on company performance in terms of economic success and employment stability or growth.

This report presents the conclusions from a seminar on labour mobility coorganised by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions and the German Marshall Fund of the United States. The seminar brought together a group of about 60 leading European and American researchers in the field of labour mobility and policymakers to discuss transatlantic mobility trends and to reflect on the social, economic and cultural impacts of geographical and long-distance labour market mobility.

This research report focuses on migration intentions of Europeans and investigates the main determinants of these intentions. The main advantage of studying mobility intentions – rather than studying migrants in their destination country – is that this approach is not biased by selectivity issues. There is indeed a large body of literature showing that migrants self-select in labour markets where their return-to-skills is expected to be larger. Moreover, literature suggests that it is not simply mobility that is of interest in socioeconomic models, but the potential for mobility.