Today, a well known economic phenomenon is that the foreign investments in the Central and Eastern Europe have been flooded, since 1989. Amongst many other economic data, we could include that in 2003, 29 billions dollars were invested by foreign companies. This figure is not easy to achieve, however, we could add that from 2002 to 2003, the investments grew by 20%. Moreover, it grew when the general investments all over the world were decreasing. Since the beginning of the process of economic and political liberalization of these countries in the year 1989, these investments have helped Central and Eastern European countries to thrive. The investors mainly come from Western Europe. This phenomenon is thus at the core of the European economy.
[...] The weakness of trade unions in Central and Eastern Europe could contribute to create a new model of labor market, whose particularities make it more attractive than the Western market. Since 1989, the unionization rate has strongly decreased. Trade unions have known deep structural transformations. Paradoxically, while they adapted to the new labor market and while workers needed to be more protected than ever-, they were at the same time, struck by a massive de-unionization. This was particularly the case in Hungary and Czech Republic. [...]
[...] Conclusion Legislations, namely social legislations, are hence at the very centre of the factors that foster foreign investments in Central and Eastern Europe. Indeed, the way social legislations protect the worker, eastwards and westwards, is the basic element that settles a discrepancy between the two parts of the continent. Indeed, legislation entails flexibility concerning timetables, easy hiring and firing, relations between managers and workers, work organization Norms and rules are really a basis: from that point, conditions have been built so as to appeal to foreign investors. [...]
[...] Thus, we will now try to explain why the Eastern workforce is special in comparison with the Western one, in order to see if workers were a major attraction regarding foreign investments or not. First of all, foreign companies and investments must be encouraged by a lower workforce's cost, because if they are looking for a new market, it could be in order to increase their benefits. On this issue, manpower in Central and Eastern Europe is really attractive, because workers earn very low wages, compared to the qualifications and diplomas they have. [...]
[...] However, this is not true exactly true, concerning the autonomy in the choice of vacation, of breaks Generally speaking, we can say that conditions of workers in Eastern countries are harder than in Western countries, mainly because they are expected to do more: to work quicker, at a higher pace, being more controlled. Furthermore, Eastern workers do work a far higher amount of hours per week. They also tend to adopt new forms of work that are unusual in Western countries, for instance night work. [...]
[...] Hence, it would be relevant to wonder: Should the Eastern European labor market copy the Western pattern, exactly, to get foreign investments? On the contrary, are the investments appealed by new and different market? More particularly, a market different from the Western one? Is benchmarking (copying certain conditions in the labor market) a necessary condition for foreign investments? Is it enough? Indeed, from the definitions given in the introduction and our prior knowledge on the topic, we have built hypothesis. [...]
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