Deep freezing the labour market through job retention schemes during the pandemic: Exploring contemporary Scandinavian crisis corporatism

When changes are made to institutions in times of crisis, one can expect some sort of tripartite coordination, i.e. crisis corporatism. This is more probable in countries like the Scandinavian ones, with institutionalised relations between well-organised social partners. From an analytical framework of crisis corporatism, this article studies the role of the social partners in developing or changing job retention schemes during, and in the aftermath of, the pandemic. Furthermore, adjustments in these schemes were analysed through theories of path dependence and institutional change. Data consist of official documents, statistics and qualitative interviews. While changes in Denmark and Norway were a mixture of path-dependent adjustments and innovative measures, in Sweden there were only minor path-dependent adjustments. There were clear differences in social partner involvement, which partly followed the number of adjustments. While crisis corporatism was stronger in Denmark and Norway, the cooperation was more at arm’s length in Sweden.