Jan Drahokoupil

European Trade Union Institute | ETUI · Research Department, Unit 2: European Economic, Employment and Social Policy

The world financial crisis of 2008 affected transition economies (including Eastern Europe and CIS members) in different ways depending on their previous growth patterns and forms of international integration. The sources of diversity have often been overlooked in views of transition as essentially a similar process across all countries. The approa...

This paper addresses demand for skilled labour in Slovakia, a country that is characterized by a high degree of economic integration through inward foreign investment and through international backward linkages within global value chains. Developing existing approaches to political economy and global production networks (GPNs), our framework distin...

This working paper presents the results of the ETUI Internet and Platform Work Survey conducted in Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Poland and Slovakia in 2018-2019. The objective is to map the extent of digital labour in central and eastern Europe (CEE). We analyse two types of online sources for generating income: internet work; and its subset, platfor...

Platform businesses are market makers, enabling their customers to interact with each other and coordinate demand on both sides of the market they serve. As far as labour platforms are concerned, it is possible to identify three types of economic roles they may take, each associated with a distinct business strategy. First, platforms are intermedia...

During the COVID-19 pandemic all the EU Member States established some kind of job retention scheme to cushion the employment effects of the economic crisis. While all job retention schemes share this general objective, they differ considerably as regards their institutional design and underlying functional logic. The aim of this article is to anal...

This paper presents some of the key insights from the second wave of the ETUI Internet and Platform Work Survey (ETUI IPWS) conducted in 14 member states of the European Union (EU) in Spring 2021. The use of standard probability sampling allows us to estimate the proportion of internet and platform workers, and to identify their characteristics, in...

It has almost become a cliché to say that the Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing inequalities while also generating new ones. However, the following pages of this year’s Benchmarking Working Europe clearly reveal that, far from being a platitude, the nexus between the pandemic and rising inequalities is both increasingly measurable and...

Providing an insightful analysis of the key issues and significant trends relating to labour within the platform economy, this Modern Guide considers the existing comparative evidence covering all world regions. It also provides an in-depth look at digital labour platforms in their historical, economic and geographical contexts.

This paper analyses the job retention schemes (JRS) implemented in response to the Covid-19 crisis, showing quantitative trends and differences in terms of expenditure on the schemes and the number of workers involved. The key focus is on a qualitative analysis of the schemes’ key properties. In order to understand the diversity of job retention sc...

This article investigates the preferences of food delivery platform workers regarding their employment status and working hours. We focus on the relationship between flexibility and protection, both of which can be understood—from a worker’s perspective—as a means towards increased autonomy and control. The analysis is based on a case study of Deli...

Discussing the contributions to this guide, the chapter provides an overview of key issues and significant trends related to labour within the platform economy, considering existing comparative evidence covering all world regions. The chapters put digital labour platforms in their historical, economic and geographical context, and address the regul...

Review of Globalization Under and After Socialism: The Evolution of Transnational Capital in Central and Eastern Europe, Besnik Pula, Stanford University Press, 2018, 272 pp., $65.00, ISBN 9781503605138.

Key points • Only a small minority of Deliveroo riders in Belgium, who are predominantly male, young and students, hold negative views about trade unions. Lack of exposure to and knowledge about unions was instead cited as the biggest reason why many of the riders are not members, with many of them undecided or ambivalent about the idea. • The low...

This working paper investigates a rare case of platform work performed in the realm of regulated employment and explores the attitudes of platform workers towards collective representation. The argument is developed that workers’ attitudes and their propensity to engage in collective action can be related to their demographic and socio-economic cha...

The EU labour market is recovering from the crisis, with the unemployment rate continuing to fall and employment back to its pre-crisis heights. However, the past 10 years cannot simply be dismissed as a temporary glitch. Although some headline employment indicators suggest that we have finally arrived back at where we left off in 2008, in fact the...

This paper presents a case study of the food delivery platform, Deliveroo, in Belgium in 2016-2018. The case offers insights on the nature of platform work, the workers who perform it, the preferences of workers, the strategy of the platforms, and the role of local regulations. Interestingly, Deliveroo in Belgium employed workers through an interme...

Wages in Eastern Europe are much lower than wages in Western Europe. The large differences remain also if we adjust for differences in price levels. This chapter assesses the extent to which wage differences between East European countries and Germany can be explained by differences in productivity and other economic fundamentals in individual coun...

The dependent nature of industrialisation and a weak innovation base has made central and eastern Europe vulnerable to economic restructuring related to the introduction of new technologies. An effective innovation policy requires an improvement of the broader institutional environment. A shift to an innovation-driven growth model is needed to sust...

This paper compares wages across Europe in relation to the characteristics of workers and firms, with a particular focus on wage levels in central and eastern European countries. Worker and workplace endowments can be taken as a proxy for labour productivity. We estimate the extent to which wage differences observed at an aggregate level can be rel...

Work on platforms is part of a wider trend towards the increasing fragmentation of work. It takes different forms, ranging from short spells of employment with the same employer to moving between different work arrangements to juggling multiple jobs at the same time. In all its forms, it signals an increasing job instability and is often fuelled by...

The rise of the platform economy has made it a topic of great interest among European policymakers, as evidenced by the European Commission’s 2016 Communication “A European agenda for the collaborative economy”. The regulatory challenges facing policymakers are manifold, ranging from taxation to competition policy to worker protection. Furthermore,...

We analyse the European operations of Huawei, a Chinese telecommunications equipment manufacturer. The case of Huawei demonstrates the complex ways in which Europe has so far been affected by Chinese high-tech outward FDI as the region has been integrated in the company’s global production network (Henderson et al. 2002). Since its initial investme...

China’s global outward foreign direct investment (FDI) has increased substantially over the last decade, with Europe as a key destination. The upsurge in Chinese outward FDI indicates a rebalancing of global political-economic relations, with China and its companies acquiring new roles and gaining economic power. ________________________________ Br...

In this chapter we present case studies of Chinese investment in Romania and Bulgaria. The cases under consideration can be classified by distinguishing between market and resource-seeking investment strategies. A conclusion about the potential impact and challenges for the cases of high-road and low-road investment is formulated.

The assumed benefits of diversification – reducing the reliance of individuals on one form of retirement insurance – currently inform policy advice on pension reforms. The diversification argument also often justifies reforms of old age pensions, including their privatization. However, the merits of diversification, particularly if pursued through...

—− Platforms may have a transformative and potentially severe impact on the employment relationship in the future, but so far this impact has been varied and very limited —− Many platforms are embedded in specific locations and hence within reach of existing regulatory tools, while others contribute to the offshoring of work —− The European Commiss...

Digitalisation, automation and technological change have brought about shifts in the occupational structure, the place and the timing of work, and career patterns, putting a further strain on the standard employment relationship. In the recent research on digitalisation, scant attention has however been paid to the gender impact of these changes. T...

The main Czech trade union confederation, the ČMKOS, launched its campaign for 'An End to Cheap Labour' at a rally of 1500 trade unionists on 16 September 2015. The aim was to start closing the pay gap with Western Europe which, even after 25 years of transformation into a market economy and subsequent accession to the EU, left Czech wages about on...

This contribution analyses the interplay between outsourcing and the spatial organisation of work. We provide an overview of different types of process that shift work across company boundaries and in space, discuss the different impacts on the nature of employment and identify the relevant strategic issues for workers as well as the possible regul...

This paper compares wages across Europe in relation to the characteristics of workers and firms. Worker and workplace endowments can be taken as a proxy for labour productivity. We estimate the extent to which wage differences observed at an aggregate level can be related to the different compositions of workforces and workplaces, as well as the ty...

The chapter is structured to start with a critical discussion of classification of CEECs as dependent varieties of capitalism. The second section refines the dependent concept with a discussion of the limited influence of MNCs on the legal framework for employment relations which is decided by political processes. The third section discusses genera...

This edited volume investigates restructuring in the electronics industry and in particular the impact of a ‘Chinese’ labour regime on work and employment practices in the electronics assembly in Europe. It studies Foxconn, the world largest electronics manufacturing service provider and the main assember of Apple's iPhone and iPad. The authors ex...

This essay discusses the use of class in Czech sociology. Czech social stratification research has used the concept of class as a part of its standard vocabulary. The approach to class was distinctively shaped by post-communist legacies. As an analytical concept, socio-economic status was preferred over class, particularly in the 1990s. The middle...

Der Beitrag wirtschaftswissenschaftlicher Analyse zum Studium der Transformation ist von Schwierigkeiten begleitet, die Gegenstand und Methode betreffen. Beim Gegenstand kann es sich um eine umfassende gesellschaftliche Transformation handeln oder um den Wandel eines enger gefassten Wirtschaftssystems. Die Methode kann der neoklassischen Main strea...

This book investigates the role that foreign direct investment (FDI) in central-eastern and southern Europe has played in the post-crisis period, comparing patterns across countries and sectors. An overarching objective of this publication is to assess the extent to which FDI can still be seen as a key driver of economic development, modernisation...

This article investigates the influence of the European Union (EU) on legal resources available to labour to tackle labour market challenges in Central and Eastern European countries after their accession to the EU in 2004 and 2007. Its conclusion is that the EU’s impact has been complex and contradictory, with differences between countries and tim...

Production networks in many sectors have become increasingly fragmented. Cutting labour costs by lowering pay, increasing work intensity and/or shifting flexibility costs to workers are just some of the motivations for outsourcing. But it can also be used to circumvent employee representation and collective bargaining systems within companies, and...

Drahokoupil and Myant introduce their approach to the capitalist variety in transition economies and make a renewed case for typological theories of economic performance. Their typology aims to account for the different types of international economic integration that characterizes transition economies in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia. T...

The contribution of economic analysis to the study of transformations is complicated by difficulties concerning both subject matter and method. The subject may be a grand social transformation or it may be a transformation of a more narrowly defined economic system. The method may be derived from the mainstream, neo-classical economics, using abstr...

Welfare states are frequently defined and classified in terms of the breadth of state activity and the breadth of services provided that protect the population from untempered market forces. As set out by Esping-Andersen (1990), and following Polanyi’s interpretation of capitalist development, they express state involvement to make living standards...

This paper assesses the development of the welfare state in the post-1989 Czech Republic, showing how differences from older EU member states can be explained in terms of the heritage of the communist past. The focus is on the immediate post-1989 period which is seen as crucial for shaping the new system. In contrast to the idea of ‘emergency welfa...

This chapter analyzes the evolution of welfare states and redistributive models in Eastern Europe and in the countries belonging to the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The highest levels of total social spending and degrees of redistribution were consolidated in countries with political democracy and established interest representation. T...

This paper investigates flexibility strategies of automobile producers in nine assembly subsidiaries in three Central and Eastern Europe Countries (CEECs). The organization of employment flexibility is an important concern for car makers, as well as for their employees. In CEECs, employment flexibility has become the major employment relations ques...

The article discusses key issues in international business strategy from a workers’ perspective and relates these to existing frameworks for understanding decision-making in multinational corporations (MNCs). It begins by identifying key decisions in international business, discussing their interrelationships, and highlighting key empirical trends....

This paper discusses the policy lessons learned from the two waves of pension reforms in Eastern European EU member states. It focuses, in particular, on the changing approach to the fiscal implications of pension privatization. In the next section, we provide an overview of the two waves of pension reforms as well as the political and economic fac...

The financial and economic crisis in the Central and East European countries raised the profile of economic policy themes that relate to the role of taxation and state spending. The key policy differences related to public budgets and support for a demand stimulus. Responses fall broadly into two categories that we link to a socialdemocratic and a...

The economic crisis of 2008, starting from the crisis in banking in the USA in 2008, affected economic and political development in varied ways around the world. This special issue covers the impact and policy responses in the former state socialist countries of central and eastern Europe and the CIS. Taken as a whole, the economies of the former s...

Czech translation of the revised version of Transition Economies has been published by Academia, the Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. http://academia.cz/tranzitivni-ekonomiky.html

In many European and other Western countries, labour markets will continue to be reformed in order to accommodate further adjustments to economic, demographic and socio-ecological developments. Moreover, labour market institutions and other aspects of labour markets receive a lot of attention in EU policy debates because they are regarded as key fa...

The financial and economic crisis in the Central and East European countries raised the profile of economic policy themes that relate to the role of taxation and state spending. The key policy differences related to public budgets and support for a demand stimulus. Responses fall broadly into two categories that we link to a social-democratic and a...

This article analyses pension reforms in Central and East European countries in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. The crisis revealed unresolved problems in the implementation of previous reforms, namely the financing of the transition costs. In their attempts to solve the funding-gap issue, the reforms needed to address legacies of past...

This chapter provides a state of the art of the comparative capitalism literature by reviewing the discussion on the ‘varieties of capitalism’ both in the developed economies and outside of the traditional capitalist core. It introduces an approach to the capitalist variety in transition economies in order to make a case for typological theories of...

The European bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has produced indicators of success in creating market economies in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. These have been helpful for researchers, but suffer from a limited view of transition based on liberalization and private property. A good score in transition indicators need not...