Social Security Systems and Labour Market Performance in the EU. Key Results

The official unemployment rate fails to show the full extent of actual non-employment rates and untapped employment potentials. When looking at labour market performance from a holistic point of view, three indicators need to be considered: employment rates, unemployment rates and inactivity rates. The study focuses on the bandwidth of causes for economic inactivity and their weights in nine European countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Sweden, UK) and the influence of social security systems on the dimensions and composition of economic inactivity. In this, a large range was found both in the inactivity rates between countries and in the national importance of the causes of inactivity, reflecting the differences between underlying social security systems.