Task Force on the measurement of the quality of employment

1. Task Force on the measurement of the quality of employment Dimension 4 – Stability and security of work, and social protection « Flexicurity »

2. « Flexicurity »   : a vague and multidimensional concept • This concept raised in the latest nineties’s, some countries were shown as illustrative examples (Netherlands and Denmark) • Flexibility (internal and external) and security : necessity to well define both of these components as well as each of the different dimensions in a global approach • Outcome of specific compromises in each country : difficulties to select a set of common indicators

3. Flexicurity and quality of employment at European level (1) • The objective of quality of employment was clearly displayed at the Lisbon Summit (March 2000) • « Flexibility and Security » of employment , one of the 10 fields of quality of employment adopted at the Laeken Summit (December 2001) • In parallel, the notion of flexicurity emerges in the employment guidelines of the European Commission

4. Flexicurity and quality of employment at European level (2) • From 2002, the objective of « more jobs » has progressively prevailed over the objective of « better jobs » • The employment guidelines are integrated into a global strategy with a focus on growth and employment priorities • Flexicurity is becoming an omnipresent theme which now covers the fields of life-long learning, balancing work and non-working life, work organisation, health and security at work, … • Flexicurity has, in a certain way, «replaced» quality

5. Flexicurity in the European’approach vs flexicurity in the ILO’approach • Very different fields which require to specify what we want to measure • A more economic orientation in the first case (« flexibility » component), a more social in the second case (« security » component) • The same indicator (ex. percentage of employees working with a fixed-term contract) can be interpreted in a positive or in a negative way according to the selected approach

6. Some general proposals • To change the denomination of dimension 4a to avoid confusions • To focus again on the question of contractual flexibility and securisation of professionnal trajectories • Not to have a « backward looking» conception of the stability of employment

7. Review of the indicators proposed by the Steering Committee • The percentage of employees with temporary jobs must be shared between involuntary temporary jobs and others • The percentage of employees with job tenure of less than one year must be completed with the rest of the distribution by job tenure and analyzed in evolution in time • The percentage of « on-call workers », indicator difficult to measure and appreciate

8. Monitoring flexicurity indicators for some European countries (most recent year) Flexible contractuel arrangements Source: European Commission – 2007 Compendium * EU15

9. For a study in depth • To assess the relevance and robustness of indicators on the employment protection such as the OECD indicator « EPL » • To develop the use of dynamic indicators relating to the professional transitions by type of contract, allowing to measure both the degree of the labour force mobility and the speed of return to work (or exit of unemployment) • To explore the European indicators which measure the « unemployment traps  » and the efficiency of the active labour policies aiming at tackling long term unemployment

10. Complementary remarks • There are tight links between this dimension and dimension 4b (Social Protection) • It’s also important to know indicators on Social Dialogue and Workplace-Relationships since it determines the success of implemented policies on contractual arrangements • Flexicurity must be assessed using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods

11. Thank you for your attention