Employment in Poland 2012. Labour Market During the Recovery from the Crisis

This edition of Employment in Poland is devoted to the analysis of the impact of the 2007-2009 global financial crisis (the so called Great Recession) on the labour market, and of the public finance and public debt crisis, which constitutes the direct consequence of a recession in some of the developed countries (especially in the Euro zone). The report has been divided into four parts. “The Great Recession” is the title of the first part. It focuses on the causes, the course and macroeconomic consequences of the crisis that started in 2008 in most of the EU and OECD countries. It aims at creating a complex image of the course of the Great Recession, and particularly at understanding its causes, mechanisms of transmission, evaluating the role of different mechanisms of adjustment and identifying multi-dimensional similarities and differences – both internationally and in comparison with the crises from the past. The second part is titled “The Great Recession and inequalities” and it is devoted to the diversification of the influence of the crisis on the situation of each of the socio-demographic groups on the labour market. It serves to identify the socio-demographic groups which were the most exposed to the negative effects of the changes of the economic situation, especially to the long-term joblessness. Such perspective is crucial for proper designing of government action and labour market policies. This part also raises the question of how the changes of the economic situation influenced the income distribution. Third part is devoted to the responses to the crisis of the policies and institutions; it is titled “Public policy in the face of crisis”. It focuses on the analysis of the impact of public intervention on the course of the crisis. The authors draw attention to the institutional conditions on the eve of the crisis, their international diversification from the perspective of the labour markets ability to absorb shocks. What is more, the analysis is carried out concerning the diverse responses used by the EU and OECD countries governments, and an attempt to evaluate their effectiveness is made. The fourth part, titled “Crisis of Public Finance and the Second Wave of Recession”, is a natural capstone of the report. It covers the subject of the importance of fiscal policy for the course of the Great Recession. The authors show how the condition of public finances in different countries changed before and during the crisis, and they reconstruct the processes and regularities occurring in the examined economies with an emphasis put on the role played by automatic stabilisers and discretional policies. Then the analysis is made concerning the collapse of public finance experienced by many countries during the second wave of the Great Recession. What is more, the question how the fiscal policy may be shaped in the future is posed.