Leader: UoA – Participants: UoP, Work Research Institute Norway.
The aim of the WP is to identify the role of different industrial compositions and specialisation in unemployment and underemployment patterns across the regions of Greece. Underemployment is identified in non-voluntary part-time work, a form of expanding atypical employment, which is related to the intensifying precariousness of the Greek labour market under crisis. In this way: (i) an analytical framework will be formed, allowing for identifying the interfaces between diverse regional patterns of unemployment and underemployment and production restructuring processes, and (ii) the study of unemployment and underutilization of labour force in selected Greek localities (i.e. Sparta, Tripoli, Rhodes and Kastoria) performed in WP2, will be both theoretically informed and integrated within its regional setting. The following Tasks will be executed in the frame of WP1:
Task 1.1 (M1-M2): Statistical data will be analysed for two distinctive periods: the 2005-2008 period of economic expansion, in the aftermath of the Olympic Games and related investments; and the 2009-2012 period of recession, right after the outburst of the Eurozone crisis. Total employment, unemployment, full-time and non-voluntary part-time work data will be extracted for the regional (NUTS-II) and the sectoral (NACE-II) level of analysis from the official annual Labour Force Surveys of ELSTAT.
Task 1.2 (M3): Regional specialisation and restructuring will be explored through the calculation of the location quotient (LQ) index of a sector in relation to the other sectors of the regional economy (cf. Morrissey, 2014). The results will provide a spatial division of production and respective un-/under-employment patterns. Employment, unemployment, full-time and non-voluntary part-time employment across sectors and groups of regions will be examined before the crisis (2005 and 2008) and after its onset (2009 and 2011).
Task 1.3 (M4): Different regional industrial structures and specializations will be related to different regional un-/under-employment patterns. This will be the outcome of shift-share analysis conducted for employment and unemployment, as well as full-time and non-voluntary part-time employment, for both pre- and post-crisis periods. The impact of differentiated industry-, or region-specific factors – either will be estimated on un-/under-employment trends across regions. The shift-share analysis will identify whether changes in both unemployment and non-voluntary part-time work are a consequence of the local industrial mix and specialisation, or of factors such as local endowments, embedded assets and relations, path-dependent patterns etc. The results of the new embellishment of the shift-share method, recently proposed by Artige and Van Neuss (2014), will be presented on an aggregated regional level, along with the respective shares of per sector change for both time periods under study. Specific emphasis will be paid to the shift-share analysis results in: (a) the region of Peloponnese, where the cities of Sparta and Tripoli are situated, (b) the region of South Aegean, where the city of Rhodes belongs, and (c) the peripheral region of West Macedonia, where the city of Kastoria is located.
Task 1.4 (M1-M4): WP1 administrative and technical management
Subproject 1.2: Announcement of research results to international conference with title Regional industrial mix, specialization and un-/ under-employment across Greek regions: estimating the harsh impact of austerity based on location quotient analysis
Subproject 1.3: Article submitted to Scientific journal Going under-employed’; Industrial and regional effects, specialization and part-time work across recession-hit Greek regions