EMCC European Monitoring Centre on Change

The European Monitoring Centre on Change (EMCC) is an information resource established to promote an understanding of changes in the world of work, employment and restructuring. Its work is supported by a Network of Eurofound Correspondents across all EU Member States and Norway.

The EMCC focuses on two main topic areas.

Employment and labour markets

Employment and labour markets is one of the six main activities in Eurofound’s work programme for the 2021–2024 period. Eurofound operates as a centre of expertise for monitoring and analysing labour market developments, particularly as European labour markets are faced with major challenges in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Its research will focus on the consequences of the pandemic for work and employment and how to maintain the functioning and inclusiveness of the labour market.

Anticipating and managing the impact of change

Anticipating and managing the impact of change is one of the six main activities in Eurofound’s work programme for the 2021–2024 period. Eurofound will provide evidence on structural developments affecting the EU economy and labour markets, driven largely by digitalisation and the transition to a carbon-neutral economy, but also by the COVID-19 crisis. The research is intended to assist policymakers in anticipating and preparing European labour markets and workplaces for these changes.

COVID-19

Eurofound’s work on COVID-19 examines the far-reaching socioeconomic implications of the pandemic across Europe as they continue to impact living and working conditions. A key element of the research is the e-survey Living, working and COVID-19, launched in April 2020, with five rounds completed at different stages during 2020, 2021 and 2022. This is complemented by the inclusion of research into the ongoing effects of the pandemic in much of Eurofound’s other areas of work.

Featured – Tech sector reducing workforce

After several years of intensive hiring, the big tech industry's employee growth has been slowing down. Google-owner Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Salesforce, and many others have recently announced they will reduce headcount. In the company announcements, the main motivator is a slowdown in demand for their services, which had been high during the coronavirus pandemic. The job reductions at the global level are quite significant: 12,000 in Google, 11,000 in Meta, 10,000 in Microsoft and 7,900 in Salesforce. However, they are relatively small compared to the number of hirings that have taken place in recent years. The layoffs are taking place mainly in the USA and, on a lesser scale, in Europe. As many of the big tech firms have their European headquarters in Dublin, a disproportionate share of European jobs cuts is likely to take place in Ireland.

This is evident from recent announcements recorded in Eurofound’s European Restructuring Monitor (ERM) events database, where most of the large, transnational job reduction cases reported in recent months have involved the well-known big tech companies. The ERM dataset is updated daily with fresh cases of large job losses (and job gains) and will continue to monitor the impact in the tech sector.

Casos recientes de reestructuración

Citibank
Poland
23/Mar/2023
100 jobs created
Dino Polska
Poland
20/Mar/2023
1200 jobs created
Magneti Marelli
Poland
17/Mar/2023
130 jobs lost
Dow Chemical
Netherlands
17/Mar/2023
169 jobs lost
Aquaservice
Spain
17/Mar/2023
300 jobs created
28956 cases recorded since 2002

Publicaciones del EMCC