The aim of this Research Note was to offer an in-depth examination of how the labour market position of individuals with specific characteristics associated to employment barriers and labour market vulnerability changed in EU countries which have experienced fast declining unemployment since the crisis and/or conditions close to full-employment. To do so, we first identified eight countries for which unemployment conditions were significantly improved (i.e., decline in unemployment rates by more than 40%, and/or unemployment rates were at below 5%) between 2012 and 2017 (the latest year with information on individuals from the EU-SILC survey). Then, we examined how individuals falling within eight groups of vulnerability characteristics (females, youths, mature working-age individuals, individuals above retirement age, foreign-born individuals, those low educated, and those living in large households or in households with members reporting limiting health) performed in those countries’ labour markets during the economic upswing. Complementarily to this investigation, which essentially sought to answer the question “how do individuals from vulnerable groups fare in the labour market during economic upswings” (in other words, do they find jobs?), we also examined how those individuals have fared with regard to their sectoral and occupational distribution of employment (asking, in other words, where do they find jobs?). These questions were examined through an extensive analysis of frequencies from observational data (descriptive analysis), that included both an investigation into the prevalence of each individual group/characteristic within each labour market status and an investigation into the incidence of each labour market status (outcome) within each individual group.

链接地址：http://dx.doi.org/10.2767/830095