Labour, Exploitation and Migration in Western Europe: An International Political Economy Perspective

Abstract

In Western Europe (the EU15), the economic crisis erupted in 2007/08 and consequent austerity programmes are leading to a general, but uneven, worsening of labour conditions (Hermann, 2014). Unemployment levels have reached record high inter-country differences: in the second half of 2014, they ranged from 5 per cent in Germany to 6 per cent in the UK, 12 per cent in Italy and around 25 per cent in Spain and Greece (Eurostat). Between 2010 and 2012, real wages declined by more than 3 per cent in Italy and the UK, by almost 7 per cent in Portugal and Spain, and by 23 per cent in Greece (Schulten, 2013). According to the European Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), between 2007 and 2012, the number of the poor increased by 8.5 millions, reaching nearly 92 millions (almost one-fourth of the population). In 2012, poverty affected 9 per cent of workers (+1 percentage point greater than in 2007), increasing also both in Italy (10 per cent) and the UK (9 per cent). Trends in severe material deprivation are even more dramatic, with an increase by 125 per cent in the first five years of the crisis (from 1.9 per cent in 2007 to 4.3 per cent in 2012).