Flexicurity til udvortes brug

Mens security demonteres herhjemme og flexibility bruges til jobeksport  tillader DANSK INDUSTRI sig at prale med Danmarks fortid som flexicurity-landet.

Der kan ligge en vis trøst i det forhold, at Erik Kjærdsgaard aldrig kom til at sige nedenstående, fordi hans

 "Presentation (was) prepared but not delivered due to unforeseen circumstances."

Det kan jo være, at de uforudsete omstændigheder var, at det gik op for ham, at nedenstående ikke længere passer i forhold i den danske regerings politik.

DANSK INDUSTRI – ERIK KJAERGAARD, Head, Social Affairs

On 16 March 2011, the ninth European Forum for Manufacturing Roundtable Discussion: ‘Employment, Health, Safety & Manufacturing’ was held in the European Parliament.

First of all, I would like to thank the EFM for inviting us here today and for giving us the opportunity to meet and discuss such important issues as flexicurity and the future for manufacturing companies.

The Confederation of Danish Industry [DI] represents 10,000 businesses and works to create the best possible conditions for the business community. My presentation will focus on flexicurity which is so important to Danish manufacturing companies.

Danish Model

In Denmark, flexicurity consists of three pillars:

1. Flexibility:

– External flexibility (i.e. easy to hire and fire):

- internal flexibility (i.e. working hours, overtime, part-time)

- wage flexibility (i.e. performance or result-based).

2. Security:

– the low degree of employment protection means that security in the Danish labour market does not appear as job security, but rather through income security and employment security

– income security means that we have a high compensation rate for low income groups: 90% for 2 years

– employment security means that the many annual job openings enable the unemployed to get a new job quickly.

3. Active Labour Market Policies:

– requirements – people must be available and actively job-seeking

– instruments – activation schemes and skills upgrading.

The Impact of the Economic Crisis

The global economic decline also reached Denmark, where companies found themselves suddenly with empty order books. The economic crisis meant that some companies had to let people go, while other companies made use of short-term working schemes.

Unemployment rates have now stabilised and we see positive growth rates. We also now know that a lot of the people who lost their jobs during the crisis, found new employment relatively quickly.

Let me give you a few examples:

• during the crisis, more than 30% of those who lost their job in November 2008, found a new job within 8 weeks.

• in the metal sector more than 60% of those who lost their job in November 2008, found a new job within 8 weeks.

• in the construction sector more than 40% of the people who lost their job in November 2008, found a new job within 8 weeks.

There is, therefore, no doubt that the Danish flexicurity system made it easier to recover from the crisis for companies, employees and the unemployed.

So flexicurity is important to Danish companies, because it provides companies with the flexibility that is needed to cope with international competition – especially in a time of economic crisis – while at the same time creating job openings, which enable the unemployed to get new jobs quickly.

However, while learning lessons from the crisis is important, I find that the ‘Agenda for New Skills and Jobs’ puts too much emphasis on this particular – and exceptional – period.

We need a policy that takes into account the full dynamics of a business cycle to cope with the challenges of an ageing and declining workforce, new market conditions, new technologies and international competition – challenges, which all require flexible labour markets.

While Dansk Industri therefore welcomes the Commission’s focus on strengthening flexicurity policies, we very much regret that the Commission seems to be promoting a single form of open-ended contract. I cannot stress enough that an important part of securing flexible labour markets is to secure a diversity of contractual arrangement.

A diversity of contractual arrangements is a pre-condition for companies to stay competitive and to adapt to new challenges.

We further believe that reducing the diversity of work contracts will not contribute to job creation. I therefore would like to warn against shifting the focus from ‘employment-security’ to ‘job-security’. One of reasons that flexicurity works as a very successful model in Denmark, is that we focus on employment-security!

Flexicurity is important – and specifically during a crisis – because it provides better possibilities for maintaining competitiveness in companies and thus for promoting:

• low structural unemployment

• high employment rate

• many job openings

• people finding new jobs quickly

To conclude, the future debate on flexicurity should focus on how best to support companies and workers in adapting to changes. And the best way to do that is to secure flexibility for companies and employment security for workers.

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