Non-standard employment in Europe: its development and consequences for the European Employment Strategy

• Published in: German policy studies/Politikfeldanalyse 2011-03, Vol.7 (1), p.171
• Main Author: Schmid, Gunther
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Age; Eastern Europe; Employment; Employment security; EU directives; Flexibility; Forecasts and trends; Labor force; Labor market; Labor standards; Labor supply; Part time employment; Population; Self employment; Studies; Sweden; Unemployment; Volatility
• ISSN: 1523-9764; 1523-9764

The last decades have seen an erosion of the traditionally defined "standard employment relationship" through part- time work, fixed-term contracts, temp-agency work and self-employment. Whereas many welcome this development as a blessing for flexible labour markets, others are highly critical hinting to disastrous intended or unintended side-effects such as low or volatile income, dead-end jobs instead of stepping stones, high job insecurity, and poverty in old-age. The European Commission tried to bridge these two opposing views by conceptualizing 'flexicurity' as the objective of the European Employment Strategy, aimed at 'balancing' flexibility and security. Although this oxymoron became common parlance in the meantime, the concept is still quit ambiguous, leading often to cheap talk or being captured by various political interests. Furthermore, one of its main goals, the growth of employment by further increasing labour force participation under the condition of reducing unemployment and labour market segmentation has not been achieved and is now even far out of sight due to the recent economic crisis. The aim of this essay, therefore, is to test the actual and potential role of non-standard employment in view of the 'flexicurity' concept through systematic descriptive work and conceptual reflections: first by comparing the development of non -standard employment in 24 EU member states from 1998 to 2008; second by relating this development to the dynamics of labour force participation; third by exploring the main (structural, institutional and behavioural) determinants of this development; and fourth by discussing - in the light of the Post-Lisbon process - the policy consequences aimed at ensuring a complementary relationship between flexibility and security rather than trading-off one against the other.