Publications

In recent years the Spanish economy has undergone a process of recovery.
After the recession of the early 1990s, a cycle of growth began, parallel to
that of other countries in the European Union. In 1997, GDP rose by 3.4% -
compared with 2.1% in 1994, 2.8% in 1995 and 2.1% in 1996. This was mainly
due to the increase in domestic consumption, investment and industrial
activity and the resurgence of construction. The prospects for growth in 1998
are also optimistic, with forecasts of around 3.6%. This has been
particularly helped by the fall in inflation, which at 2.1% in 1997, was the
lowest for 30 years. This low inflation rate has led to a reduction in
interest rates, which were very high in the 1980s. The public deficit has
also been reduced through restrictive budgets and privatisation of public
companies (ES9709123N [1]). The public deficit stood at 2.6% of GDP in 1997.
According to Eurostat figures, the unemployment rate stood at 20.8% in 1997,
compared with 22.2% in 1996 and 24.3% in 1995. The number of those in
employment increased by about 371,000 in 1997 in comparison with 1996.
Nevertheless, fewer jobs were created than in the previous year, despite
greater economic growth.

[1] www.eurofound.europa.eu/ef/observatories/eurwork/articles/a-new-step-in-the-privatisation-of-the-industrial-public-sector-in-spain

A November 1997 orientation debate on employment policy in Luxembourg's
Chamber of Deputies has prompted several motions. The most important of these
urges the Government to work towards an agreement between the social partners
that contains both the outlines of a framework law on working time and ways
of gradually reducing working hours, to be negotiated through collective or
company-level agreements.

Future Community actions on education and training are to be limited to
measures under three key priorities, according to a Communication issued by
the European Commission on 21 November 1997. The priorities are:

At present, Sweden has no legislation expressly forbidding discrimination in
working life on grounds of sexual orientation. At the beginning of 1997 the
Government appointed a committee with the task of investigating if there was
a need for such legislation.

During 1997, the annual GDP growth rate reached 3.4%. Economic growth was
accompanied by a fall in inflation: the annual increase in the GDP deflator
(which measures changes in prices of all goods and services included in
national GDP) fell from 14.4% in 1993 to 6.5% in 1997; while the consumer
prices index rose by 5.2% in 1997. Particularly spectacular was the reduction
of the public deficit from 13.8% of GDP in 1993 to 5% in 1997. However,
increased production, reduced inflation and improved public finances were
accompanied by a constant rise in unemployment, from 9.6% in 1994 to 10.4% in
1997, while long-term unemployment now accounts for 50% of all unemployed
persons. The improvement in public finances was also accompanied by a
significant rise in tensions in the field of industrial relations.

The Austria Government has taken three new measures aimed at facilitating
youth employment. In the first, a clause was added to the Federal Tendering
Act (Bundesvergabegesetz), as part of the general tendering conditions,
requiring that in awarding tenders for contracts, the employment of persons
on a training contract be taken into account. Parliament approved this
change. No explicit mention of apprenticeship contracts was made, because
this would conflict with European Union regulations. The new clause takes
effect from 1 January 1998.

Following the severe economic recession of the early 1990s, the Finnish
economy has more recently been characterised by a period of economic growth
and relative stability. In 1997, economic growth rates amounted to 5.9%. This
improved economic position also led to a reduction in unemployment, from a
rate of 15.6% in 1996 to 14.5% in 1997. However, employment opportunities
were primarily generated for young and highly-skilled people, while older
workers and the low-skilled continued to suffer from long-term unemployment.
Inflation decreased to 1.3% and the public deficit was reduced to 0.9% of
GDP.

Since the beginning of the 1990s, the German system of branch-level
collective agreements (branchenbezogene Flächentarifverträge) has been in
an continuing process of change in the direction of a differentiation between
companies of collectively agreed norms and standards, and a decentralisation
of bargaining competence to the company level. Two basic paths to
decentralisation can be distinguished:

In 1993, the Restaurants and Brewery Workers Union in Denmark (Restaurations-
og Bryggeriarbejder Forbund i Danmark, RBF) signed a collective agreement
with a nationwide restaurant chain. RBF was able to come to terms with the
restaurant chain, which was not a member of an employers' organisation, only
by agreeing to less favourable terms and conditions (in terms of flexible
working hours and overtime premia) than those specified in its main agreement
with the sectoral employers' association, the Association of the Hotel,
Restaurant, and Leisure Industry in Denmark (Hotel, Restaurations- og
Turisterhvervets Arbejdsgiverforening, HORESTA).

The 1997 /Warwick pay and working time survey/ shows, on the one hand, that
formal "benchmarking", or even measurement, of employee performance is not as
common in the UK as might be expected. Benchmarking against the international
competition is particularly infrequent, even where firms are experiencing an
internationalisation of market boundaries or in the nature of their
competition. On the other hand, the survey finds that employers do have
access to a wide range of other formal and informal networks through which
they can share and compare their experiences. The evidence shows that
managers do use these opportunities for information-sharing when making
changes to pay and working time systems. In practice, therefore, a looser
form of benchmarking might already be widespread, and this might be a useful
consideration to take into account when the Government - which regards
benchmarking as a vital tool for improving employment relations and business
performance - seeks to develop policy proposals in a White Paper in 1998.