Crisis and Work: An Analysis of Emergency Labour Market Policies in Portugal, Spain and Greece

Abstract

In this article, we analyse the main reforms introduced in the
Portuguese, Spanish and Greek labour-markets since the beginning of
the crisis. Based in a documental and statistical analysis, the study
takes in consideration the similar institutional, historical and geographic
characteristics of these countries, but also their particularities. Results
show that the emergency policies tend to resemble and to concentrate
on dismissals, contracts, working time, salaries, collective bargaining
and working conditions in the public sector. Nonetheless, the pre-crisis
structural variations between these countries, together with the different
effects that the crisis had in each one of them, help to understand
possible differences in terms of results, giving a new contribution to the
questioning of the internal homogeneity of the Mediterranean model.