The EU proposes flexicurity
The European Commission has published its proposal for the establishment of common principles of flexicurity to promote more and better jobs by combining flexibility and security for workers and companies. On one hand, flexibility ensures workers can move easily into a job, and between jobs. On the other, security benefits businesses, by improving workers’ skills, providing them additional security and benefits. The EU hopes flexicurity strategies will help modernise European labour markets and alter address opportunities and challenges of globalisation. This includes flexible and reliable contractual arrangements, active labour policies, comprehensive lifelong learning strategies and modern social protection systems that provide adequate income support during periods of unemployment.
The strategies have already been successfully applied in Scandinavia. Due to its outstanding success, the Danish flexicurity model is much discussed at EU and member states’ level. The model was introduced in 1993 by a Social-Democrat government. The result was a decline of unemployment from 12% to 5%, while keeping the growth of nominal wage at a steady 3% to 5% per year. The flexicurity model is supposed to provide a response to demographic change which creates long-term skill gaps, labour shortages and segmented labour markets which increases the gap between those in secure work and the unemployed or insecure earners.
