Comparisons between British and German employment performance in recent years have characterized the two countries as, respectively, finding a formula of high employment based on high consumption expenditure financed by household debt, and remaining tied to an external trade and low consumption model that no longer creates jobs. Placing these two countries in a wider perspective of all European Union member states and the Usa reveals a different picture. Two different patterns seem associated with high employment levels: a northern European one of low consumption expenditure and high household debt, and an Anglophone one of high consumption expenditure and high household debt. Links for these contrasting models are sought in their very different social policy and industrial relations systems. Questions are raised concerning the role of household debt in the northern European cases, and the lack of any clear patterns differentiating much of western, southern and central Europe.only subscribers can see the full article

The article tackles the difficulties of statistical information on labor questions in Italy, starting from the development of a fundamental survey on the subject (Survey of Work Forces) by ISTAT, whose data-gathering and classifying methods were overhauled at the start of the present decade. Despite notable efforts, there are still gaps and delays that make it indispensable, as part of the more general transition from producing and making available information to extending knowledge, to proceed at once to the use of administrative data for statistic purposes, making the administrative sources a primary resource for official statistics. An opportunity is provided by the introduction of obligatory communication (of recruitments and dismissals), which is a valuable source of information on the flow of entries/exits from the job market, and also by the plan to unify monthly communications on insurance contributions (Uniemens). only subscribers can see the full article