HE ISSUE OF LABOR SUPPLY AND DEMAND IN
THE CONTEXT OF THE SOCIAL ECONOMY
(As part of the socialneet program)
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE……………………………………………………………………….3
INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………8
WHAT IS THE SOCIAL ECONOMY………………………………………….21
THE THIRD PILLAR OF THE SOCIAL ECONOMY
IS THE CREATION OF NEW JOBS…………………………………………
SOCIAL ECONOMY & “EUROPEAN ACTION PLAN”…………………….30
SOCIAL CAPITAL SOCIAL NETWORKS AND VOLUNTEERING………40
INTERVIEWS……………………………………………………………………..47
SOCIALNEET & SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Interview with Vassilis Taktikos, head of physical object of INMEKO of the Socialneet project……………………………………………………………47
INTERVIEW WITH ANDREAS N. LYTRAS, PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY………………………………………………………………………56
THE ENERGY SECTOR IN THE SOCIAL ECONOMY……………………68
THE AGRI-FOOD SECTOR – LIVELIHOOD AND LOCAL SELF-SUFFICIENCY……………………………………………………………………76
HEALTH SECTOR AND SOCIAL ENTERPRISES…………………………88
THE INTERVENTION OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT
IN THE SOCIAL ECONOMY…………………………………………………..94
THE SECTOR OF THE GREEN ECONOMY AND
ENTREPRENEURSHIP……………………………………………………….100
Annex…………………………………………………………………………….106
Prologue
This study examines the dynamics of the social economy in relation to dealing with unemployment and in particular the unemployment of young NEETS in the context of the social need program.
The purpose of the study is to formulate a theory and a practice guide that will utilize the experience of the specific program against the background of the pan-European experience of the third sector of the economy. For this purpose, it examines the specificity of the supply and demand of jobs in the field of social enterprises.
It identifies the object and subject of social entrepreneurship and the institutional conditions that are necessary for the development of the third sector of the economy, with the ultimate goal of creating employment and income.
Youth unemployment is a growing problem that has significant long-term consequences for individuals, communities, economies and societies. The essential solution cannot only arise with traditional training and retraining practices but also with alternative forms of entrepreneurship that will create new jobs such as the emerging social economy. This is the question that the present study deals with.
The relevant labor force surveys show that youth unemployment has increased in all EU countries since 2008. The high unemployment rate for young people and especially for NEETS in the Mediterranean countries reaches 30% and is now considered a structural problem in the market economy and the supply of jobs.
Objectively it cannot be addressed in the framework of self-regulation of the labor market, supply and demand. Not only from state interventionism, nor from training programs and over-specialization.
These approaches concern the 35% of young people who can find work in high-tech enterprises, they do not concern young people with traditional skills who can work in manual and contract services, such as: land workers, forest workers, artisans, salesmen, drivers, security guards , auxiliary nursing and social care staff, waiters, maids in hotels, delivery workers, carers of the elderly, daycares, domestic helpers, small farmers, artisans, collectors of recyclable material. In these and other similar labor-intensive occupations, NEETS can find work. In addition there is a demand for webmasters and e-commerce managers, who need some training but mostly social organization skills.
The problem for this level of qualifications of the young job offer is that, despite the needs in the real economy, which has never ceased to exist, business interest in private entrepreneurship in labor-intensive sectors has decreased.
At the same time, the profit margins for the employer have narrowed and there are no necessary investments for sufficient jobs. Even where there are recorded needs, there is no corresponding offer for social reasons. The figures show that since 2008 and after 1/3 of the small and medium-sized private enterprises for example in Greece has closed. As a result, the corresponding jobs have also been lost, with the result that there are untapped natural, material and human resources in contrast to the needs for income and work that are not covered.
With this thought, the strengthening of the labor market demand for NEETS goes largely through a more complex field that has to do with the promotion of the physical object and the business entity, while in many cases it is necessary to undertake business initiatives by job candidates themselves as co-operatives or self-employed. Herein lies the critical issue of social innovation.
Thus, alongside the need for labor demand, there is the need to promote Social entrepreneurship, which is a prerequisite for the utilization of inactive natural and human resources. The productive model that consolidates and mobilizes these resources for the benefit of local communities and economically vulnerable groups. Social entrepreneurship is the institution that can restore the shrinking of small and medium enterprises that close due to competitiveness and low profitability by drastically reducing the cost to the consumer.
It is typical today that the gap that exists in some despised but necessary professions such as land laborers is partially covered by economic migrants and the informal economy. And the problem will remain as long as the social and economic organization ignores parts of the real economy and therefore there are inactive human resources. We therefore need an exemplary model of the social economy and social entrepreneurship that will cover this deficit. The aim is to develop a strategic manual (exploitation of knowledge from the project) that presents a holistic approach to the creation of employment through the third sector (SOCIALNEET Model).
According to this reasoning, the strategy of the social economy for employment differs radically from the strategy of the private sector of the economy.
The European Employment Strategy (EES) has as its direction since the Treaty of Rome full employment has always been one of the objectives of the community.
In this context, the operation of the European Social Fund (ESF), which is an aid institution for the promotion of employment and worker mobility, has special resources for this purpose.
The stated goal is to combat long-term unemployment and youth unemployment and to modernize education and training systems.
This strategy proposes to significantly reduce the cost of hiring an additional employee, facilitating the transition to self-employment and the creation of small businesses. And it seeks adaptability: in modernizing the organization and flexibility of work and implementing contracts adaptable to different types of work, supporting vocational training programs within businesses promoting equality of opportunity.
However, this strategy, despite verbally acknowledging the structural problems of the economy and employment, remains obsessed with a repetitive approach. At its core is the well-known doctrine of the skills deficit of workers. In order to cover this deficit, interventions do not need to be made by production but by the workers themselves who must become “employable” through training and lifelong learning. This approach does not take into account the objective shrinking of wage labor in the private and public sectors, resulting from the development of technologies and the reluctance of private capital to invest in sectors with low or no profit in business. The same does not account for the inability of the State to extend itself further as an “entrepreneur” in socially necessary jobs.
In sectors that aim to remove economic and social exclusion and in any case create employment for socially sensitive groups. NEETS also belong to these groups.
Of course, the admission that the State and the EU finance most training and professional orientation programs shows that the doctrine of self-regulation of the labor market does not work, at least to the extent that it is attempted. On the contrary, the continuous state interventionism to create jobs with subsidized programs is a serious indication of the need for institutional intervention beyond the entrepreneurship of the private sector and the state.
In contrast to state interventionism, the strategy of the social economy and social entrepreneurship differs precisely in the driving forces that drive entrepreneurship. The interdependence of labor supply and demand, which exists in the object and the collective subject of social entrepreneurship that we should note, is not separated into employers and employees but is identified with the same interests.
Therefore, social enterprises operate in a special way in the supply and demand of labor. The interaction in this dipole is not uniquely determined by the supply of workers and the demand for labor by employers. And this happens simply because in a cooperative, for example, employees and employers are the same persons and necessarily have the same aspirations and financial goals.
To the question of what are the advantages of social entrepreneurship over the profit economy, we can briefly answer:
Firstly, the reduction of transaction costs
Secondly, the utilization of inactive human and material resources
Thirdly, utilization of the social capital of collectives as an subject of social entrepreneurship.
The reduced cost of production and transactions ensures the viability of small and medium enterprises where the economy of profit and market has no interest in business.
Social enterprises contribute precisely to the exploitation of inactive human and material resources, by combining the fragmented resources of small owners and institutional cooperation as a tool.
Social enterprises can capitalize on idle public and local government real estate and land by providing these idle resources for exploitation through Cooperatives.
Of course, there is still the question of how costs are reduced with social entrepreneurship and how this becomes an advantage in contrast to the market economy?
The inclusive answer is that, in social entrepreneurship there are no intermediaries, the employer and consumer is the local community itself, and therefore the cost chain does not add to the price the profit of intermediations and additional taxes of the supply chain. In this way we have reduced costs in favor of the consumer community.
There are many successful examples of cooperatives and social enterprises that confirm this assumption.
A leading modern example in recent years is the energy communities (energy cooperatives) where the energy producer is the consumer himself, as a result of which he produces the electricity he consumes himself and when it comes to energy offsetting, he reduces the cost of energy by at least 70%. In this way, energy poverty is addressed prospectively, but also ensures the resilience of small and medium enterprises in a number of sectors. The study points out that in private market enterprises, Supply and Demand are two separate forces, each determined by different factors. On one side are the productive companies and traders and on the other are the consumers. In social entrepreneurship, the cooperative shareholders are at the same time consumers-beneficiaries.
The central problem is that worldwide there is a reduced demand for labor from private sector enterprises, to such levels that government intervention in labor demand cannot meet.
This fact of the reduced demand for Labor is certified by the general fixation of wages with the exception of a very small percentage of 1% who work in high technology. If there was sufficient demand according to the law of supply and demand then wages would be going up and not down as they are today.
Seeking to stimulate demand, the social economy presents the model and advantage of reduced costs for consumers since consumers and service users themselves participate in social entrepreneurship and Consumer cooperatives.
Cooperation has responsibilities and is not an easy option for those who have learned to work as an employee. However, it is a necessary choice and a conscious act to improve the income of the Consumers, offering new jobs at the same time.
Let us consider the three basic goods: energy, nutrition and health. In these sectors there are successful applications of Social enterprises and cooperatives that provide solutions to the problem and new jobs.
The issue is therefore that these options institutionally multiply and constitute the third pillar of the economy of labor supply and demand.
