Strike Activity and Unemployment in Europe: Do Europeans Strike move in Bad Economic Times?

Many European countries have experienced high levels of unemployment and strike activity in recent years. However, in the literature on strike activity it is generally accepted that strike activity is procyclical, meaning that higher unemployment rates go together with less strike activity. This result was mainly obtained with North-American data. This paper therefore studies the relationship between strike activity and unemployment in Europe. A possible explanation for why this relationship might be different in Europe is the existence of general strikes; strikes directed at the government. Through an analysis of the existing literature, it is expected that economic and general strikes are related to the unemployment rate in different ways. The estimation of a regression model with panel data of 26 European countries over 30 years shows that the relationship between strike activity and unemployment is sensitive to how strike activity is measured. The relationship does appear to be different for both types of strike activity.