Focusing on overall changes in employment levels over the total period since the downturn in the EU labour market started in 2008q2, the relative falls in employment likewise vary considerably across different population sub-groups. Men, young people, the low-skilled and non-EU nationals have been relatively most affected by falling employment over this period (Chart 49).
With regard to gender, men have suffered the brunt of the contraction in employment, with their employment having fallen by 3.4% (versus only a 0.7% decline for women) and accounting for around 85% of the total net reduction in employment to the second quarter of 2010. This different gender impact of the recession on employment strongly reflects differences in the types of jobs that women and men perform. The greater concentration of women in part-time work, lower-paid jobs and smaller firms has had an impact on the relative effects of the downturn.
Similarly, the different sectoral concentration of male and female employment has played a key role. To date the economic downturn has had a much greater impact on male-oriented sectors, such as the construction and manufacturing sectors (which combined account for around two-thirds of total sectoral employment declines, and in which men account for more than two-thirds of overall employment). Conversely, women more often work in sectors shielded from business cycle fluctuations — such as the public sector, health, education and the social sector. Nevertheless, in the future, female employment may give more cause for concern as those are precisely the sectors that will be more affected by upcoming fiscal tightening. Moreover, even though fewer women than men have lost their jobs in this crisis, those who become unemployed may have more difficulty in finding a job, being more vulnerable on the open labour market, in so far as they have less labour-market experience on average, and their careers are more often based on part-time jobs with temporary contracts.
In terms of age, employment performance has generally been better the older the age group. Youth (those aged 15–24) continue to be proportionately the most affected by employment contraction, with a decline in employment of 11.4% over this period, reflecting the high share of temporary employment among young people (in 2008, 40% of employed 15-24 year olds had temporary contracts, whereas among 25-64 year olds the share was only 11%). This compares with a much more limited contraction of 2.2% for those of prime working age. In contrast, employment of older workers aged 55-64 has held up well, and had even increased 5.0% compared to the second quarter of 2008. Similarly, even employment of those aged over 65 increased significantly (by 3.4%). These positive development for older age groups is partly thanks to labour-market reforms in past years, which have encouraged older workers to remain economically active, together with governments not repeating the mistakes of past recessions (when early retirement schemes were introduced to reduce unemployment), but it may also indicate that the negative impact of the crisis on the wealth of private households has induced many older employees to postpone retirement.
In terms of skill levels, the crisis has affected low-skilled employment most severely, with the low-skilled experiencing a much stronger reduction in employment than other skill levels. Since 2008q2 their employment has dropped by 10.2% compared with a fall of only 2.7% for the medium-skilled, while for the high-skilled employment actually expanded by close to 6%. These figures show the vulnerability of the low-skilled group and the need for an effective new skills agenda.
Finally, although nationals saw their employment decline by 2.3% (or around 5 million), third-country (i.e. non-EU) nationals experienced a much stronger decline of 4.3% (0.4 million), but in contrast nationals of other EU countries saw their employment level rise by 5.7% (0.3 million). The particularly strong relative decline in non-EU migrants’ employment in part reflects the fact that they are over-represented in sectors such as construction, which has been particularly strongly affected by the economic downturn. Furthermore, in terms of occupations, a high share of migrants are employed in elementary occupations (much more so than non-migrants), and as craft and trades workers – i.e. in the low-skilled occupations which have been most at risk in the downturn.
Indeed, in terms of occupations, the workers hardest hit by the crisis have mainly been those in manual and elementary occupations (Chart 50). Craft and related trades workers and plant and machine operators and assemblers have both seen employment levels decline by around 9.0% over the two years to the second quarter of 2010, reflecting the focus of the impact of the labour market downturn on the manufacturing and construction sectors. Those in elementary occupations and working as clerks have also seen significant losses, with employment down by 3.4% and 2.9% respectively, reflecting the greater impact on the low-skilled. In contrast, however, service-sector-based occupations, other than clerks, have experienced significantly lower fallout from the crisis, with even substantial growth recorded in the skilled professional occupations (up 4.0%).