IMPACT OF THE WORLD CRISIS ON THE EMPLOYMENT AND PRODUCTIVITY OF SMEs: THE CASE OF THE LARGEST EUROPEAN ECONOMIES

The financial world crisis caused negative economic consequences within many sectors of national economies. One of the affected is SME (Small and Medium Enterprises) which plays an important role in each economy because its effects on employment creation and added value. Therefore, it has been concluded that symptoms of recovery of this sector after the World Economic Crisis can be an important incentive to the growth of economies. In this article, the changes in employment and labour productivity in SME sector of big European economies, such as Germany, France, Italy, Great Britain, Spain and Poland, are described. SME sector was divided into micro, small and medium companies. The period researched cover year from 2002 to 2010,. for which Eurostat data is available. it allows to observe the consequences of the world crisis and to evaluate the adjustment of entrepreneurs to changing economic conditions. Universal measures of employment growth rate and labour productivity also allow to spot differences between countries. Those differences indirectly indicate the importance of economic structures and the style of economic policy in different countries.