European Temporary Staffing: The Changing Regulatory Landscape

In Europe, a policy priority is to maintain a balance between flexibility and employment security (OECD, 2004). The concept of achieving an appropriate balance in the labour market between ensuring the flexibility of employment options and providing sufficient levels of social security has been termed flexicurity (OECD, 2004). Temporary agency work, in turn, is seen as a facilitator of flexibilisation and hence a key component of the drive towards a labour market that operates on this flexicurity principle (ILO, 2009). Restrictive regulation is seen as a prime obstacle to the expansion of the temporary staffing industry and historically there have been many areas of Europe that have been dominated by strict employment protection legislation (EC, 2009). This Working Brief outlines patterns of the regulation of temporary agency work across Europe from 1990 to 2008 using one of the OECD Employment Protection Legislation Index measures.