Search

This paper analyses how employees adaptability can be improved through labour market flexibility and the particularity of geographical, employment and functional flexibility in Romania. Tacking into account the role of human factor in social and economic development and its role in knowledge based society, the progress of Romania in the direction assumed by the entire Romanian people to integrate among developed countries can be supported only by developing a modern and flexible labour market and by transforming the educational process in a driving factor for integration and accessibility of all citizens regardless of age, gender, residence, ethnicity.

This chapter presents an analysis of labour market flexibility with the DMS model which is a dynamic macroeconomic multisectoral model of the French economy.1

Since the early 1990s, the proportion of the New Zealand households living in owner-occupied dwellings has declined markedly from 73.8 per cent in 1991 to 66.9 per cent in 2006. Over the same period there has been a decline in the unemployment rate from 10.5 per cent to 3.5 per cent. Several demand, supply and institutional factors are responsible for the downward trend in unemployment, but this paper investigates a possible connection with homeownership that has hitherto not been investigated in New Zealand. Andrew Oswald argued in a series of unpublished papers in the 1990s that home ownership is detrimental to labour market flexibility because of transaction costs that homeowners must incur when a job change necessitates a change of residence. An extensive theoretical and empirical literature on this hypothesis has emerged internationally. The present paper reviews earlier findings and then rests the hypothesis with 1986, 1991, 1996 and 2001 census data for 58 labour market areas, using econometric models for panel data. We take account of the erogeneity of homeownership. The New Zealand models do provide evidence that supports the Oswald hypothesis.

This paper will examine two aspects of the labour market flexibility, namely the ability of the workplaces to adjust their workforce and to reduce their relative labour costs. The survey covers the period ending in May 1991 during which firms faced considerable economic uncertainty and financial pressure. As with the above studies it confirms that considerable flexibility existed in the New Zealand labour market prior to the Employment Contracts Act.

This paper attempts to extend the debate over labour market flexibility by incorporating some of the larger exogenous issues that are currently shaping New Zealand's future as a trading nation. It argues that structural shifts in the face of global price competition have important consequences for labour demand and in turn for both the institutional agencies of industial relations and for operational practices. The increasing importance of the formative role of mu;lti-national corporate practices are also discussed, particularly their tendency to treat labour supply requirements as a special case of factor markets in which the human factor is melded into an integrated socio-economic system. The paper concludes that current changes in labour law have still not addressed the question of the degree of flexibility that a deregulated labour market might require and that the potential for considerable conflict exists between employer and trade union perceptions as to the roles of current institutions.

The view that labour market flexibility will lead to benefits for everyone is far obvious. This paper analyses changes in retailing over the last decades. It finds that much flexibility has been achieved in the industry. Recent legislative changes have played an important role in these changes. Processes of deskilling, casualization, juuenalization and feminization are being intensified. The effects the quality of working life for retail workers are examined. It is found that retail workers are having to pay a high price for the flexibilities achieved by their employers.

This article offers a perspective on the growing debate on the future direction of industrial relations in New Zealand. It argues the existence of a significant relationship between the business environment of an industry and the industrial relations practices adopted by its constituent employers. In focusing on the pursuit of internal labour market flexibility in the retail food industry it attempts to analyse the various factors that have both impelled and impeded this process. It concludes that while the demand for greater flexibility tends to be generated within the industry, its successful implementation is frequently subject to external factors.

Most European countries have legislated to provide a basic floor of rights which underpins collective bargaining. This article reviews the experiences of the major European countries and examines the way that the floor of rights is being extended. It also discusses the floor of rights in the context of the search for labour market flexibility.

The abolition of compulsory arbitration means that bargaining power will be essential to achieve superior settlements. Workers will be attracted to stronger unions and there will be ,a change in union structure. The dismantling of the welfare state will mean that workers will come to depend on union bargaining power for protection. The objects of unions and the subject matter of bargaining are no longer restricted, and the union can insist that the employer provide security which was formerly provided by the state. Restructuring the union movement as promoted by the Labour Relations Act will not in the long run lead to greater wage flexibility. Unions will remain occupationally based, and will be parties to occupationally based awards which do not accommodate the economic circumstances of individual industries or employers. There will be a smaller number of more powerful unions holding the national award structure together through bargaining power, rather than by the force of the Arbitration Commission's reasoning.

Short‐term employment contracts have been deployed rapidly across European countries in the past decades. In this paper we suitably modify a known search and matching theoretical framework to quantify the effects of temporary contracts reforms on the present discounted value of the utility of junior and senior workers. We calibrate the model using data from Italy and find that while senior workers may benefit or not from the diffusion of temporary contracts depending on the productivity of the match, the utility of junior workers is always lower in the presence of temporary employment. This result is ascribable to the high rates of turnover associated with temporary contracts which offset the benefits of the increased labour market flexibility.

Under annualised hours' contracts (AHCs), workers and management agree to the length and scheduling of working hours over a 12-month period. Such contracts have been widely seen as a potentially important way of achieving greater labour market flexibility and enhanced efficiency in work organisation. There exists very little empirical work on these contracts and this study is intended to provide insights into their British labour market role and potential. Especially for workers who are not in management or a profession, the costs of switching to AHCs are substantial. The enterprises that are likely to gain from the switch are those that (a) experience significant fluctuations in output/service demand and (b) desire to utilise plant and space more intensively over the calendar year. In this latter respect, plants incorporating complex shift operations are particularly associated with AHCs.

The debate about European monetary union has so far been dominated by questions of fiscal convergence, the adequate conversion exchange rate and the stability of the Euro. Relatively little attention has been given to the labour market effects although labour market performance will be crucial for the long-term success or failure of EMU. The following article deals with the interrelationship between EMU and labour market flexibility in Euroland.

The 1983 OECD Employment Outlook reported that ‘the rapid expansion of part‐time employment in virtually all member countries is one of the most significant structural shifts occurring in the OECD labour market over the last two decades…in many countries, part‐time employment has continued to grow when full‐time employment has been stagnating or even declining. As the decade progresses, it is apparent that forms of employment different from the traditional full‐time norm are assuming increasing importance, and in all countries part‐time work represents the largest component of this loosely defined ‘flexible workforce’.

The purpose of the paper is to analyse how labour market and labour market institutions reacted during recent crises. In early 1990s Estonia introduced a set of rather unique policy options like currency board as a ground for monetary policy, low taxes, open foreign trade policy, low public sector debts, annually balanced state budget etc. These measures caused very limited options to implement both monetary and fiscal policy. Macroeconomic adjustment will take place in such situation through the labour market. In the case of Estonia, we can observe a very high labour market flexibility, which played a crucial role in recent economic recession. The measures taken included a reduction of nominal wages, working hours and redundancies among employees. This indicates that the traditional institutional factors that protect workers and also could decrease the flexibility of the labour market, such as labour market regulation, social protection and union activities, are not very well developed in Estonia and do not have a significant effect on the outcomes of the labour market. The labour market reform was launched in Estonia in 2009. The main idea of the New Employment contract was that the termination of employment relations became less expensive for employers. Although empirical evidence show that the Employment Contracts Act entered into force at a time when most lay-offs had already been effected. J08, J21, J50, J63