Social dialogue in the financial sector in Europe. Contribution to anticipation and restructuring.

The present report was prepared in the framework of EUROSOFIN project. This project, co-financed by the European Commission (VS 2013/ 0355), was conducted from the 1st of December 2013 to the 28th of February 2015. It was carried out by five organisations from five European countries. The target sector of EUROSOFIN is the financial sector with a focus on banks. This sector is significant in Europe for the covered countries in terms of GDP share and employment. The banking sector in Europe employs more than 4 million persons in the EU28. It was dramatically hit by the recent crisis and impacted by multiple new regulations (such as Basel III, the bank secret rules, etc.). Major challenges are the changing legislative framework as a result of the global financial crisis and the Eurozone crisis, increased banking supervision and the implementation of compliance instruments, the image of the industry, skills needs, and the demographic change. The pace and direction of restructuring has been profoundly affected, however, by the financial crisis of 2008 and its long reach into the Euro crises of 2011-12 that are continuing to have major consequences, including on the directly concerned banking sector itself. Only between 2008 and 2010, 250.000 jobs were lost in the EU27 banking sector alone - a 6% fall compared to the 2.4% total fall over those two years (Eurofound 2012).