Employment through Labour Market Flexibility? A Critical Appraisal of the European Employment Strategy

Over the last two decades, labour market policies in Europe have been strongly inspired by the doctrine that persistent unemployment mainly arises from malfunctions in the labour market itself. 1 In various ways, the flexibility of labour markets has been advocated as the main solution to unemployment. The call for flexibility typically includes demands for downward wage flexibility, easier hiring and firing, flexible changes of tasks and working conditions and higher labour mobility across regions, industries and occupations. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.