Professional paper
https://doi.org/10.70077/et2er.7.2.13
Assessing the impact of crisis situations on the EU-27 labour market in 2018-2024
Beata Bieszk-Stolorz
; University of Szczecin
*
Krzysztof Dmytrow
; University of Szczecin
* Corresponding author.
Abstract
The labour market is an important element of every country’s economy. European Union countries vary in terms of their
level of economic development. On the other hand, they are linked by their participation in the common market.
European Union policy aims to reduce these differences so that the entire community becomes a relatively homogeneous,
strong market that is competitive on the global market. The aim of the study is to assess the impact of crisis situations
on the EU-27 labour market in the years 2018-2024. The research period covers two major crises: the COVID-19
pandemic and the war in Ukraine. We assessed the similarity of the situation in the labour markets of the EU-27 countries
and their changes using selected indicators in the period before and during the COVID-19 pandemic and after the
pandemic, which coincided with the outbreak of war in Ukraine. We used Eurostat quarterly data presenting basic labour
market indicators: unemployment, employment and activity rates. We analysed all indicators for the entire population,
young people and people aged 55+. The study was conducted in two stages. The first stage consisted of assessing the
situation on the labour market using the Hellwig method. In the second stage, we examined the similarity of changes
in the labour markets of the EU-27 countries using the Dynamic Time Warping method. We obtained homogeneous
clusters of countries based on the similarity of time series using hierarchical clustering. We conducted the analysis in
three periods: 2018-2019 (pre-pandemic period), 2020-2021 (pandemic period) and 2022-2024 (post-pandemic period
and war in Ukraine). The composition of the clusters varied across all periods. This demonstrates the impact of crisis
periods on the labour market situation in the EU-27.
Keywords
cluster analysis; COVID-19 pandemic; Dynamic Time Warping; EU-27 labour market; Hellwig method
Hrčak ID:
341349
URI
Publication date:
16.12.2025.
Visits: 268 *