Occasional Paper Series 1/2017
Against the backdrop of continuing adjustment in EU labour markets in response to the Great Recession and the sovereign debt crisis, the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) conducted the third wave of the Wage Dynamics Network (WDN) survey in 2014–15 as a follow-up to the two previous WDN waves carried out in 2007 and 2009. The WDN survey collected information on wagesetting practices at the firm level. This third wave sampled about 25,000 firms in 25 European countries with the aim of assessing how firms adjusted wages and employment in response to the various shocks and labour market reforms that took place in the European Union (EU) during the period 2010–13. This paper summarises the main results of WDN3 by identifying some patterns in firms’ adjustments and labour market reforms. It seeks to lay out the main lessons learnt from the survey in terms of both the general response of EU labour markets to the crisis and how these responses varied across the countries that took part in the survey.
DOI: 10.23656/24613800/12017/0145
The occasional paper should not be reported as representing the views of the European Central Bank (ECB), the Banco de España, the Bank of Greece, the Bank of England, the Eesti Pank or the Banca d’Italia. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the ECB, the Banco de España, the Bank of Greece, the Bank of England, the Eesti Pank or the Banca d’Italia.