ABSTRACT
This chapter starts with a brief discussion of the developments that gave rise to the growth of flexibilization of the labour market. It concerns on the one hand government developments like deregulation and internationalization of policy, and on the other hand economic developments like globalization of production and competition relations and increasing individualization of needs on the part of consumers. Collectively these developments compel flexibilization of the supply of goods and services and therefore influence both the organizational structure of companies as well as the way labour is organized, resulting in ‘the flexible firm’. The next section shows that flexibilization of labour can take several forms. Numerical flexibility refers to the ability of employers to alter the size of the work force. Functional flexibility refers to extending the range of tasks and skills in a job. The varying location of employees along the flexible - non-flexible continuum may cause a divergence of interests between different groups of employees. On the one hand there will be a group of highly educated, well-paid employees and on the other hand, a growing number of employees who, due to a lack of qualifications, are dependent on flexible labour in the low-qualified industries and the services sector. Then some recent trends with regard to different flexibility strategies in the Netherlands will be presented, followed by a discussion of the conceptual relation between labour market participation and social exclusion. The chapter ends with some concluding remarks concerning the consequences of these developments for the social exclusion of some groups in society.
