Greece, Italy, Spain & Portugal Industry

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PIRAEUS

ATHENS, 2007

European Union European Social Funds

Article 6 Innovative Measures

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TABLE OF CONTENT

1. INTRODUCTION.........................................................................................................3

2. EMPLOYMENT AND MODERN LABOR MARKET ...............................................6

3. EMPLOYMENT AND UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE EUROPEAN

ENVIRONMENT........................................................................................................10

4. DEMOGRAPHIC PROBLEM & EMPLOYMENT IN THE EU.............................16

5. THE LEATHER AND FOOTWEAR INDUSTRY IN THE SOUTH EU

COUNTRIES...............................................................................................................18

Leather and footwear industry in Greece................................................................18

5.1.1. Leather sector ..............................................................................................18

5.1.2. Footwear Sector...........................................................................................21

The leather and Footwear Industry in Italy............................................................25

The leather and footwear industry in Portugal.......................................................28

The leather and Footwear Industry in Spain ..........................................................33

6. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS ....................................................................................41

Common characteristics in the four south EU countries .......................................41

Critical differences in the South EU countries........................................................44

7. CONSTRAINTS ANALYSIS OF CONSTRAINTS................................................45

8. CONCLUSIONS .........................................................................................................49

9. LITERATURE - REFERENCES...............................................................................51

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11.. IINNTTRROODDUUCCTTIIOONN The present study is carried out in the framework of the ACTION LINC project

(Action for Leather Integrated Co-operation) which is co-financed by the European

Social Fund (in the framework of Article 6) .

The projects goal is to design and implement a employment management strategy for

aged workers in the production field of the leather and footwear industry in four

countries in the South of Europe (Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal) where there are

significant employability problems. The project focuses on the implementation of

innovative human resources management methods in order to deal with the problems

generated during the past years due to the rapidly changing environment.

The comparative study of the labor market in terms of aged workers in Greece, Italy,

Spain and Portugal is a deliverable of the first stage of ACTION LINC and is the

continuation of the field studies and researches that were carried out in all

aforementioned countries. The Comparative Analysis is based on the data of the

results of the National studies that were carried out in the framework of the project

and its goal is to highlight the common features, problems and needs of the Labor

Market in the Leather Footwear Industry focusing on aged workers.

With regard to the implementation of the study we must take into account the

following points, which highlight the multifarious and complex character of

Employment and in particular of aged workers.

Employment in modern economies is identical to economic growth. In the developing

economies (and not only) the sectors that have positive development indexes are

naturally those that generate new jobs and contribute in terms of Employment.

The globalized economy has create a new situation both in terms of economy and in

terms of labor market and Enterprises are obliged to adapt themselves according to

this new environment so as to ensure their feasibility and further development.. As a

result needs in terms of human resources focuses on well trained personnel in a

modern business and economic environment.

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Globalization has as well another influence, namely the fact that enterprises relocate

their production in low cost countries (mainly due to the low labor cost). As a result

there has been a strong de-industrialization and loss of jobs in the production field in

the developed and the developing EU countries.

The modern digital technology constitutes on the one hand a pole for the development

of new quality products and for a more effective organization of the production and

on the other hand it has changed the requirements of the labor market. The

requirements in terms of Human Resources focus on technologically specialized jobs

whereas low specialization jobs gradually disappear or are covered by financial

refugees or by flexible form of employment.

The financial refugees have greatly changed the labor market and in particular

immigrants from Eastern European countries have influenced a lot the environment in

all European countries. The flow of immigrants has dramatically changed the labor

market map in all hosting countries.

The numerous products, which due to the globalization come from countries, such as

China, India, Korea of low labor cost and as a result of low production cost made

competition for European products in the International and domestic markets even

harder.

The present study investigates the Leather and Footwear Industry in four countries

(Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal) in relation to:

) The existing situation

) The Human Resources Employment

C) the perspectives for further development concerning both the financial volumes an

the Employment itself.

D) The identification of practices that could lead to further growth and development.

The comparative analysis was based on field research and studies that have been

carried out in the framework of the ACTION LINC project in four countries in the

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South of the European Union (Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal). The data and

conclusions that are included in the Study and are relevant tot the labor markets and

the situation of the industry are taken from similar research and studies.

The present study is divided in an introduction and seven individual sections:

The second (introductory) section presents the basic concepts with regard to

employment and unemployment together with a brief presentation of the prevailing

trends relevant to the problem. The third section presents a draft of the existing

situation in the labor market of the industry under investigation, its structure and

employment features as well as the policies applied in the EU for the unemployment

focusing mainly on aged workers. The fourth section presents the demographic

problem in the economically active EU population, the practices that have been

applied until today in most EU countries as well as a forecast for the years to come.

The fifth section presents the characteristics of the leather footwear industry in

Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal as reflected on the national field studies that were

carried out in the framework of the project. Moreover the SWOT technique was

applied for the centralized presentation of opportunities, weaknesses, perspectives and

menaces of the industry in the four countries under investigation in the present

project.

The sixth and the seventh section presents the common characteristics, the problems

and the needs in the four countries as well as their differences. Moreover constraints

are determined so that they are dealt in a way to create more favorable conditions for

aged workers in the leather footwear industry. Last but not