Covid-19 and the Labour Market: Crisis and the Rediscovery of Social Law

Abstract This chapter begins by recognizing the seismic impact that the Covid-19 pandemic had on labour markets across the globe. The pandemic led to sudden, extensive, and intermittent but persistent ‘lockdown’ periods, to business closures, and to large swathes of workers losing their jobs or experiencing temporary suspension of work. The chapter charts the regulatory strategies pursued by different countries, and by their executives in particular, to support domestic labour markets, to avoid mass unemployment, and mitigate the impact of any recession in the aftermath of the pandemic, but also to protect workers’ health and safety at work. These were often competing objectives leading to difficult policy choices. Broadly speaking, the Covid-19 pandemic led to a reconfiguration of labour law and labour regulation along the lines of a broader notion of ‘social law’. Under this renewed vision, the intervention and role of social security mechanisms, economic law, and health and safety legislation played as much a role as the (heavily revised during the pandemic years) institutions that, from the construction of labour contracts to their termination, typically underpin employment legislation. The chapter queries whether this broader reconfiguration, that was very much shaped by the urgency and contingency of the pandemic, may have some lasting effects on the discipline, and whether—contingencies aside—a fairly radical reorientation of the basic cognitive map underpinning ‘labour law’ may now be desirable. This would mean that its regulatory frameworks will be more resilient and responsive when the next crisis occurs.