Flexicurity is a new way of looking at flexibility and security on the labour market.
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Flexicurity sets out from the awareness that globalisation and technological progress are rapidly changing the needs of workers and enterprises. Companies are under increasing pressure to adapt and develop their products and services more quickly. If they want to stay in the market, they have to continuously adapt their production methods and their workforce. This is placing greater demands on business to help their workers acquire new skills. It is also placing greater demands on workers with regards to their ability and readiness for change. At the same time, workers are aware that company restructurings no longer occur incidentally, but are becoming a fact of everyday life. Protection of the specific job they have may no longer be sufficient, and might indeed be counterproductive. In order to plan their lives and careers, workers need new kinds of security that help them remain in employment, and make it through all these changes. New securities must go beyond the specific job and ensure safe transitions into new employment.
Flexicurity is an attempt to unite these two fundamental needs. Flexicurity promotes a combination of flexible labour markets and a high level of employment and income security and it is thus seen to be the answer to the EU’s dilemma of how to maintain and improve competitiveness whilst preserving the European social model.
Flexicurity can be defined, more precisely, as a policy strategy to enhance, at the same time and in a deliberate way, the flexibility of labour markets, work organisations and labour relations on the one hand, and security employment security and income security on the other.
The flexicurity concept takes us from a job security mentality to an employment or employability security mentality. It is a policy approach geared less towards the protection of jobs, and more towards the protection of people. Encouraging flexible labour markets and ensuring high levels of security will only be effective if workers are given the means to adapt to change, to stay on the job market and make progress in their working life. For this reason, the flexicurity model also includes a strong emphasis on active labour market policies, and motivating livelong learning and training, improving customized support to jobseekers, supporting equal opportunities for all and equity between women and men.
The basic principles behind the flexicurity approach are very much in line with the central elements of the EU strategy for growth and jobs. The revised Lisbon Strategy promotes an active response to the challenge of globalisation. Flexicurity relies on a high level of workforce training, another priority in the updated strategy. In particular, Guideline 21 of the Employment Guidelines stresses the need to promote flexibility combined with employment security and reduce labour market segmentation, having due regard to the role of the Social Partners.
Each Member State has a specific labour market situation and culture. The European Commission is therefore not aiming for a one-size- fits-all “flexicurity recipe” for all Member States, but rather to establish “pathways” to be developed towards achieving more flexicurity. Pathways are sets of measures that can, if introduced in conjunction with each other, improve a country’s performance in terms of flexicurity. Various pathways need to be designed, fitting to different national situations. Pathways should also recognise that flexicurity strategies require broad support from workers, business and other relevant actors in society. Pathways need to be balanced, taking into account the interest of insiders as well as outsiders on the labour market. They would also help to promote a climate of trust in which all the actors concerned accept responsibility for change.
In June 2007, the Commission is presenting a Communication which is to provide major input to the development of the common principles. In preparation, the Commission is conducting a broad consultation involving Member States, parliamentarians, Trade Unions, business, NGO’s and the general public. The consultation process was complemented by a major conference in Brussels on 20th April 2007. The Communication will be discussed in the EU Council of Ministers, which is expected to allow them to adopt a set of common principles by the end of 2007.
Flexicurity: the four components
The 2006 Commission Annual Progress Report developed a broad view on flexicurity comprising four components, all of which related to existing guidelines and priority areas of the Growth and Jobs Strategy:
– (both from the perspective of the employer and the employee) through modern labour laws allowing for sufficiently flexible work arrangements and reducing labour market segmentation and undeclared work. The link between productivity and wages is part of such arrangements.
– (ALMP) which effectively help people to cope with rapid change, unemployment spells and transitions to new jobs
– (LLL) systems to ensure the continual adaptability and employability of workers. Financial and other incentives should be reviewed to achieve a breakthrough. EU funding should strongly support these enhanced efforts.
– which combine the provision of adequate income support with the need to facilitate labour market mobility. This includes the removal of all restrictions on the mobility of workers within the EU.
