Sectoral explanations of employment in Europe: the role of services

Melanie Ward-Warmedinger, Antonello D'Agostino and Roberta Serafini

No 625, Working Paper Series from European Central Bank

Abstract: This paper investigates the determinants of the service sector employment share in the EU-15, for the aggregate service sector, four sub-sectors and twelve service sector branches. Recently, both Europe and the US have experienced an increase in the share of service-related jobs in total employment. Although converging in all European countries, a significant gap in the growth of service jobs in Europe relative to the US persists. Understanding the main factors behind this gap is key to achieving higher employment levels in Europe. This paper focuses on the role of barriers in the EU-15 which may have hindered its ability to absorb labour supply and therefore to adjust efficiently to the sectoral reallocation of labour. We find that a crucial role in this process has been played by the institutional framework affecting the setting up of new businesses and by the mismatch between workers' skills and job vacancies. JEL Classification: E24, J21, J23, J24, L80

Keywords: employment share; Europe; institutions in the labour and product market; sectoral adjustment; services; US (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006-05
Note: 171133
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.ecb.europa.eu//pub/pdf/scpwps/ecbwp625.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Sectoral explanations of employment in Europe: the role of services (2006)
Working Paper: Sectoral Explanations of Employment in Europe: The Role of Services (2006)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:2006625

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Paper Series from European Central Bank 60640 Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Official Publications ().