Not for bad weather: flexicurity challenged by the crisis

The third ETUI Policy Brief European Economic and Employment Policy in 2010 analyses the performance of European countries in the crisis according to their levels of flexibility and security.

To this end, the author, Andranik Tangian, of the Institute for Social Research at the Hans-Böckler Foundation (WSI), develops and applies composite indicators of the impact of the crisis, flexibility and security. Overall, the analysis shows that countries with high flexibility rankings have performed comparatively poorly in the crisis.

Generous security systems, by contrast, have served to mitigate its negative impact in a number of cases. The findings suggest that flexicurity in its current form does not pass the test imposed by the crisis and requires revision in the direction of a 'normalisation' of employment relations.

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