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Press release
Annual
Survey of Employee Share Ownership in Europe in 2015
The
European Federation of Employee Share Ownership (EFES),
the voice of employee share ownership in Europe, released
the new "Annual Economic Survey of Employee Share
Ownership in European Countries" on March 3.
Assets
held by the 8 million employee shareholders in Europe
in 2015 were never so high before: 370 billion Euro
and more than 3% of the capital of all large European
companies in 2015. This is more than 45.000 € per person.
Marc
Mathieu, Secretary General of the EFES said: "We
see that even through the European crisis, employee
share ownership is a formidable engine to share in results
and growth, - assets per person have more than doubled
since 2009."
However,
the imbalance has continued to widen between European
countries.
Some
European countries have chosen for stronger incentive
policies, promoting employee share ownership and long
term savings as an investment for the future. The UK,
Austria or Spain have to be mentioned in this way. The
UK and Austria chose to double the fiscal incentives
for employee share ownership, considering it is a key
element of recovery, and Spain introduced a new law
for employee-owned and participative companies.
Instead
of that, some other countries have chosen to reduce
public spending and to support household consumption,
while incentives for long term savings and for employee
share ownership were sacrificed (France, Greece, The
Netherlands, Denmark). Meanwhile, Germany maintained
its reluctance to promote employee share ownership.
The
number of employee shareholders in Europe stabilized
in 2015. However, the decrease was significant in continental
Europe since 2011 (-10% and -700.000 persons) while
at the same time, the number increased by 10% in the
UK (+200.000 persons).
While
assets held by European employees in shares of their
company increased spectacularly since 2009, these growing
assets are spread over a declining number of employees
in continental Europe. Austerity and lower incentives
have thus a clear consequence in continental Europe:
The democratization of employee share ownership regresses,
leading to wealth concentration and higher inequalities.
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