ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes the less interesting for its own sake than for the tensions which the coexistence of these two regulation methods is now able to generate. It argues that whatever their organisational profile, large French companies have mostly taken on the question of medium-term management of their manpower. The chapter describes several observations in order to identify the limits of the de-localisation movement in respect of employment policy. It suggests that the statistical unemployment thresholds correspond only rarely with the spells of unemployment which punctuate the actual behaviour of the long-term unemployed. The chapter aims to explore acknowledge the continuation of a hybridisation of negotiation levels, and of their method of operation in accordance with the subjects covered. The move toward policies of employment governance can be followed by means of a variety of indices, beginning during the eighties with the transfer to local authorities of social support policies.
