.gif){kind=small}
BACK TO HOME
PAGEEUROPEAN REVIEW
FLEXIBLE LABOUR practices can boost competitiveness and employment in the mechanical and electrical machinery industries but can have unwelcome consequences for the personal lives of employees. According to a report* from the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the process of change often proves wrenching for employees as many long established practices are abolished. Multi-skilling, multi-tasking and quality circles have exploded previously narrow responsibilities. Positive results of flexibility include 'companies doing better, productivity rising and wage costs falling', 'The negatives include reduced overtime pay, greater job instability and "unsocial hours"'. The report highlights the value of negotiating with the workforce in order to accommodate the needs of workers.
Whilst employers strive to stay competitive, unions seek to preserve and create employment 'in demanding reductions in working hours in exchange for more flexible arrangements'. In Germany agreements increasingly specify reducing the working week to 35 hours in return for more flexible scheduling. In France some agreements have led to time-saving accounts in which workers can save overtime, bonuses and annual leave, and annualised hours. The ILO indicate that total world employment in the sector has grown by 12% since 1980 with output growing by 113% in the same period. 4.5 million jobs were created but most of these were in the developing world which now has 32% of the workforce. Up to 1992 nearly a million jobs were lost in the OECD countries, but since then the trend has reversed with, for example, the USA gaining 411,000 jobs and the UK 85,000. The changes mentioned above have contributed to this but not without cost to individuals.
THE ANNUAL Report of the Court of Auditors, published recently made a damning attack on financial mismanagement by the European Commission. It concludes that well over 4 billion Ecus were misspent in 1997, about 5% of the total EU budget. Most of this loss is blamed on mismanagement and poor accounting practices rather than outright fraud. The Court suggests that the Commission is incapable of keeping reliable accountancy records. Procedures were so lax, reports the court, that no interest was being payed by the banks on accounts in surplus.
In the ex-Soviet Union 850 million Ecus allocated to nuclear safety activities was wasted, either lost, embezzled or left unspent. Agricultural spending was, as always, a 'hot potato'. Producers of durum wheat, the subsidy for which is higher than the market price, have been spreading to 'non-traditional growing areas'. The Court claims that the administration of community finances measures success by the amount spent rather than the results achieved. In response to the debate in the European Parliament on the report the Budget Commissioner, Erkki Liikanen, said ' a majority of both formal and substantive errors occurred in the agricultural and structural programmes which are mainly managed by the Member States' but 'we have to continue our efforts to make the Community rules and legislation clear and transparent'. Many MEPs were not convinced by this and there are some moves to block the EU budget until systems are tightened.
EU trade with the outside world was 1.3 billion Ecus in surplus in August. But there was a surplus of only 9.7 bn in the first eight months of 1998 compared to 29.2 bn in January-August last year. The figures come from Eurostat, Statistical Office of the European Communities. Trade with the USA was well up (+15% for exports and +14% for imports over same period a year earlier). Effects of the situation in Far East financial markets can be seen in a fall in exports to Japan(-14%) and Taiwan (-2%), and the replacement of Hong Kong by the Czech Republic in the list.
Country |
Exports to |
Growth (%) |
Imports from |
Growth (%) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
USA |
104.2 |
15 |
101.7 |
14 |
|
Switzerland |
36.4 |
5 |
32.0 |
10 |
|
Japan |
21.0 |
-14 |
43.2 |
13 |
|
Poland |
18.3 |
16 |
10.4 |
14 |
|
Russia |
16.8 |
11 |
15.7 |
-11 |
|
Norway |
16.3 |
8 |
20.4 |
-8 |
|
Turkey |
14.9 |
8 |
8.9 |
18 |
|
Czech Rep. |
11.0 |
7 |
9.4 |
28 |
|
China |
11.0 |
17 |
26.8 |
16 |
|
Taiwan |
8.1 |
-2 |
11.7 |
19 |
|
Back to |
Forward to |
Up to |
