EIRP Proceedings, Vol 6 (2011)

Abstract

The global economic and financial crisis has generated a series of adjustments both in terms of
macroeconomic policies and especially in terms of real economies developments. One field with major
impact on the economies development, especially in this period, is the labour market. Referring to the labour
market, the results at the global, regional and local levels appear extremely negative. Thus, only in the
European Union (EU27) approximately 23.248 million men and women were unemployed in November
2010, of which 15.924 million people in the euro area, according to Eurostat. At the end of 2010, the EU27
unemployment rate was 9.6% and in the euro area it reached no less than 10%. Lately, in the labour market,
although one can observe some temporary improvements, from month to month, the situation remains critical
due to the delay in creating new jobs. In this context, the paper aims to capture, through a case study, the
developments of EU New Member States (NMS) labour market, before and after the emergence of the crisis.
The obvious and immediate implications of the crisis on the labour market are the increase of unemployment,
especially the long-term unemployment, and the more difficult recovery of the NMS labour market,
compared with euro area countries.