Increasing flexibility of duration of employment

Description

Increasing flexibility of duration of employment involves implementing policies and practices that allow employment contracts to be adapted in length according to organizational needs and individual circumstances. This strategy aims to address issues such as labor market rigidity, skills mismatches, and workforce shortages by enabling temporary, part-time, or project-based work. It remedies unemployment and underemployment by facilitating easier entry and exit from jobs, supporting both employers’ operational demands and workers’ preferences for varied employment durations.

Implementation

In most European countries the principle of employment contracts being normally of an indefinite duration has been weakened, so providing less security to the weaker party in industrial relations, the worker. A few forms of this flexibility are: (a) extension of the possibilities of concluding short-term contracts; (b) extension of the probationary period; (c) extension of the practical training of young workers; (d) using agency temporaries.

In most countries measures have also been taken to arrive at more flexibility at the time of the termination of the employment contract. Examples of this are shorter terms of notice and lower dismissal compensations.