ABSTRACT
Over the last two decades, there have been major shifts in labour market trends and in perceptions of work organisation. New production and management paradigms in addition to neo-liberal patterns of employment regulation have emphasised market competition through the advocacy of more flexible production, organisational and employment patterns. Although the range, contents and outcomes of these processes have been discussed since the early 1980s, we are still witnessing new aspects of economic, social and institutional changes that influence employment patterns and employment relations. In terms of Atkinson’s (1984) ‘flexible firm model’, organisations seem to have reduced their ‘core’ labour force and increased the ‘periphery’ of part-time, casual, contract and self-employed workers.
