This panel addresses the question of whether, and if so how, the patterns of change of labour market and unemployment policies in EU member states have been changing in the aftermath of the crisis that began in 2008-9 and in particular during the period since reinforced pressures on public spending (‘fiscal austerity’) became apparent in the EU in 2010. Drawing on material from a forthcoming edited volume, a series of national case-studies (Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, Ireland and the UK) explore how retrenchment but also expansion have taken place different across domains of labour market and unemployment policy; whether there has been a shift in the logic of activation policies; and how retrenchment and expansion of protection have been distributed across the well-protected and the less well-protected labour market populations. Labour market reforms are also placed in a wider context of structural reforms in important domains (such as pensions systems, education and training systems, the public sector and research and development policies) in order to characterise strategies for pursuing growth. Looking at the big European picture, do we see a convergence or a divergence in labour market and unemployment policy trends and outputs? Can we identify different patterns of change across member states? Last but not least, we ask whether there has been a divergence or convergence in labour market outcomes that can be associated with the ongoing policy changes and macroeconomic conditions.