At least 26 million unemployed people will be looking for work across Europe during the long, hot summer of 2013. They will not be the only ones looking. Millions of school and university leavers will join them in the search. Millions more are looking for more work than they already have – another parttime job, or a full-time job in place of part-time work. And millions of others are not registered as unemployed but are also searching for paid work to supplement their income: pensioners in need; partners of someone in work whose wage has fallen; students who are studying full-time but cannot survive without a job on the side; children who are officially too young to work but whose families need the money.
The official EU unemployment rate is now one in eight of the labour force, but many (if not most) of the other seven eligible adults do not see themselves as decently employed, as having enough paid work, or as being paid enough for what they do. Even among those who receive enough income, many do not have enough job security to feel safe. Others are working more than they would like but know they have little choice to reduce their hours. To do so would make them more vulnerable to being seen as disposable, to redundancy.
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