New Study Reports on Growth of Employee Ownership in Europe

Two recent surveys find that employee ownership, while still comprising a small part of the European economy, is growing. The 2007 report from the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, Financial Participation of Employees in the European Union: Much Ado About Nothing? reports on two surveys, the CRANET study from Cranfield University of European companies with more than 200 employees, and the European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) of more than 16,000 employees. Both were done in 2005. The CRANET study was by email and had a 15% response rate; the EWCS study was based on face-to-face interviews.

Among large companies in the CRANET study, about 40% offer at least some employees stock plans in the U.K., France, and the Netherlands, while 32% do in Ireland, Belgium, and the Scandinavian countries. Plans are much less common elsewhere. There are no data on how many of these are broad-based. Larger companies are more likely to offer plans, negating the widely held economic theory that the bigger the company, the less rational it is to offer company-based incentive plans. Companies with stock plans are significantly more likely to be open about various aspects of the company as well as to be more participative in day-to-day work practices.

In the EWCS study, among companies with more than 250 employees, the highest rate of participation was 8% of employees in Ireland, 7% in France, 5% in Belgium and Sweden, 4% in the U.K., and 3% or less in all other countries. While these numbers are small, they have grown by at least 2% in every country except the U.K. since 2001.