Labour Flexibility and Productivity: An Overview

Abstract

Labour market flexibility is being seen as increasingly important, given the rapid changes in the world economy and the intensification of global competition. This book examines theory and country evidence to challenge the myth that deregulation of the labour market is the surest way to improve flexibility of labour and improve productivity. Labour market flexibility should not be, as the World Bank states it is, ‘a euphemism for pushing wages down and workers out’ (World Bank, 1995).