Symposium on Temporary Work: Introduction

Abstract

European countries have adopted widely varying policies concerning employment protection. In economies where permanent workers have high levels of employment protection, temporary contracts can provide a mechanism enhancing labour market flexibility, since firms can adjust their workforces by varying the number of temporary workers. In Spain and, to a lesser extent, France – countries characterised by high levels of employment protection – there has been a dramatic growth in temporary jobs over the last 15 years. The experience of Britain provides a contrast, since weak employment protection has been associated with a low and stable percentage of the workforce in temporary jobs. Recently, EU policy makers have turned their attention to temporary jobs, and required the extension of employment protection to temporary workers.1 This symposium gathers together comparative evidence on the nature and evolution of temporary work in countries with different regulatory frameworks and different labour market conditions. Some of the evidence is microeconomic, providing information on the extent to which temporary jobs are ‘good' or ‘bad' in terms of worker compensation and career possibilities. Other evidence is macroeconomic, and sheds light both on forces that may explain the rise in temporary work and on the consequences of an increased prevalence of temporary jobs. The four papers in the symposium examine temporary work in four EU countries: Britain, France, Spain and Sweden. The reason for looking across countries is that the differing institutions in each country – notably the degree of employment protection – allow us to examine different features of temporary work. Britain provides the benchmark case where weak employment protection means that the outcome follows an essentially unregulated market. Sweden and France have maintained employment protection at about the average levels in Europe for the past fifteen years. Both, however, show sharp rises in temporary work over the period, although – as discussed in the papers – possibly for very different reasons. Spain is an interesting extreme example where temporary work is far higher than elsewhere in the EU, despite several reforms attempting to reduce employment protection restrictions over the last 15 years. In effect, Spain represents the opposite extreme to the British experience.