Vision to Reality: The Reut Blog

The Reut team recently came back from a study visit to the EU in which we meet with officials and EU social partners regarding the Flexicurity approach.

Our main insights and findings are below:

Flexicurity is not a new policy but a general approach, which encompasses overarching policies and means that states have used in the labor market before the term was coined. Its importance is in providing a mechanism balancing between security and flexibility.

As a general approach, Flexicurity requires a systematic horizontal effort yielded by the integrated efforts of governmental departments, employment agencies, welfare authorities, and social partners (employers and Trade Unions organizations), all coming together on common ground. The role of social partners is not limited to helping implement the approach, they play a vital role in sharing knowledge, reflecting needs, identifying constrains.

Flexicurity creates a new understanding of the terms ‘security’ and ‘flexibility’ – The Flexicurity approach does not relate to the conventional understanding of these terms. Security is not provided by protecting jobs, but by facilitating the ongoing improvement of workers’ human capital in order to allow them more job opportunities. Flexibility is not defined by providing a low level of job protection, but by dialogue with workers to enable finding prompt solutions to changing realities. For example: Part-time vocational training implemented in Germany yielded a dimension of resilience during the current economic crisis.

Therefore, Flexicurity is about providing flexibility and security both to workers and employers – The common assumption is that the Flexicurity entails security for the workers on the one side, and flexibility for the employers on the other. However, the implementation of the Flexicurity approach in Europe has proven that both sides require both of these elements. Employers need security in order to guarantee the return of their investment in the training of their workers. The worker needs flexibility to pursuit job opportunities.

While common employment policy aims to create incentives to increase participation in the work force, Flexicurity today should focus on policies ensuring sustained integration in the labor market. This goal can be obtained by strong emphasis on Life Long Learning. In addition, employment policy should focus on utilizing the unique potential of different segments of society to contribute to the country’s competitiveness.

Flexicurity must not be limited to the national level but should be promoted in a defined sector or at the firm level. At such levels, due to the proximity between employers and workers, there are greater possibilities of creating understanding and flexibility to needs arising due to changing reality. For example, changes and adjustments forced on firms due to the current economic crisis were best addressed at the sector or firm levels.

In near future we will publish a policy paper on the implementation of the Flexicurity approach in the Israeli Labor market.