The Concept of Labour Market Flexicurity in the Eurozone

Abstract

This chapter discusses the evolution of the idea of a flexible labour market as a smooth shock absorber in case of asymmetric shocks. The concept of flexible labour markets became an institutionally well-established concept when the OECD constructed its index of labour market strictness. The OECD recognised, however, the weakness of its narrow approach and the European Commission put forward the more novel notion of flexicurity. Next, this chapter explains how the proposal of the concept of flexicurity aims at reaching a reasonable agreement between both the efficiency and the security principles by taking into consideration the interest of all the stakeholders in the labour market, including those who are inactive or unemployed. Further, we provide a wide overview of the various approaches concerning the issue of flexible labour markets. We also develop a thorough analysis of the implementation of the notion of flexicurity in several EU Member States such as Denmark, The Netherlands, Austria and Spain. In the case of Spain, we highlight the few elements of flexicurity contained in the Spanish labour market reforms during the 1980s and 1990s, as well as in the most recent reforms during the 2010–12 period.