Conference on The Future of Work, Employment and Social Protection
Annecy, January 18-19, 2001
Remarks by Hans Borstlap
Hans Borstlap
Director-General for Strategy and Labour Market
Ministry of Education Culture and Science
Governing Board
P.O. Box. 25000
2700 LX ZOETERMEER
The Netherlands
I would like to start by offering a definition of the threats to job security in Europe. At the Annecy meetings some documents and presentations displayed a
tendency to blame flexibility and globalization for the growing insecurity of jobs. Such a description of our problem does not seem very helpful to me, as it might
trigger a search for solutions to this job insecurity by means of restricting, or even rejecting flexibility and globalization. In my view, these methods do not serve
our purpose. The restoration of job security of the traditional model is an unfeasible project in the globalizing economies of today. The problem is not flexibility
and globalization, but instead our inability to adapt our social policies to these new challenges. We might even argue that Europe needs more flexibility and
globalization, considering its current demographic status. Sooner than we might realize Europe will be confronted with a shortage of labour. In the Netherlands
this is already the situation, with 3% unemployment and high tensions on the labour market.
Europe is also facing a rapidly ageing population, placing a considerable strain upon the current pensions system. At present, the growth in our degree of
participation is slowing down, and the number of young people entering the labour market is decreasing. What we need is a more productive European
economic performance, befitting of the European role in the world economy. We are leaving behind a period with an emphasis on bulk-products, and entering
the highly productive, knowledge and services-based economy. In this perspective, accelerated globalization and flexibility can help us accommodate future
demands in our welfare state. We are better off in embracing the accelerating flexibility and globalization, rather than fighting against it. But the question is still
how the working population is to be prepared to be more responsive to an economy, which has to adjust to globalization and flexibility. This is a topic further
explored by Alain Supiot in his presentation at Annecy; how, exactly, are we to react to this ongoing trend of technological and economic transformations?
First of all: the well-known trade off discussion between social and economic factors, or between public regulation and free market forces, is not very helpful
anymore. We need, and I agree with Alain Supiot, strong public regulations at the international level of the European Community and the WTO. This plea is
not opposed to the need for flexibility and globalization, but is the prerequisite for it. Without appropriate regulations, free competition will lack the essential
rules to realise a lasting and prosperous economic development.
In these new public regulations, a renewed, modernized social policy has to be developed as a productive factor in a knowledge based, high-productive
European economy. What is required for a lasting economic development, with a high degree of flexibility and globalization, is an investment program and
renewed regulation in order to a new achieve job security. There is also a need for a new social policy, identifying new forms of human dignity in the coming
decades. At the same time, we have to get rid of old forms of social security, which give only a false, and often romantic, feeling of security with reference to
the past.
Some examples of this investment and renewed public regulations programme:
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1. In the new economy, job security can no longer be the ultimate goal. If workers are well trained, their skills regularly updated, the loss of
employment need not be disastrous. The new security thus consists in being well trained. I would argue that a legal obligation of life-long learning for
employer and employee must be considered seriously. More than 100 years ago, in most European countries, our grandparents accepted a legal obligation
to send their children to school. In those years further schooling and training after 16/17 years of age was not necessary in order to get a life long job.
The same argument for an obligation of child education 100 years ago applies today to a more obligatory approach to life-long learning for the working
population. In order to avoid unemployment, workers must be well trained and continuously updated. The lack of young people on the European labour
market and the new trend towards a highly skilled workforce, mean there is an absolute necessity of permanent training. It is to be kept in mind that 80% of
the relevant knowledge of today is useless within ten years. Knowledge is ageing very fast. However, the introduction of compulsory training creates a
need for new public regulation. At the same time, the too heavy dismissal regulations might be revised, as these regulations might hurt a growing number
of jobs in a more flexible and globalizing economy. The new promising forms of job security might thus consist of increased employability and less
dismissal regulations.
- 2. Second point of investment and renewed regulations:
If a man and a woman both accept a part-time job of : of a full-time job, the family income corresponds to 12 job. Both parents are then in a position to
combine a job with family responsibilities, as was pointed out by Eileen Appelbaum at the meeting.
Part-time jobs must have the same right as full-time jobs, proportionately, of course, to the number of hours of that part-time job. Part-time jobs have, in the
Netherlands, a legally-based equal position. In our country these part-time jobs might become the norm for the future. For men and women alike, full-time
jobs of today will become an exception.
- 3. A last element is the need for a more promising public investment, and well-organised, efficient public employment service in order to facilitate the
flexibility in various sectors of the labour market, something belonging to the responsibilities of the government. In Europe, a high-skilled, high-productive
economic development needs a new public investment program focussed on education, health care, public transport, and environmental issues. Thus
flexibility and globalization in our economic development does not imply a weak Government, withdrawing from the economy, but rather the opposite: it
implies a strong government, but strong on the right issues.
Governments must discuss the program of investment and renewed regulations with social partners. The Dutch experience shows that this debate could
be successful in order to obtain the commitment of the social partners for more flexibility and a new job security.
To sum up: The problem in our welfare states is not the flexibility and globalization trend.
Our problem is instead our inability to modernise our social policy in order to cope with accelerating flexibility and globalization. These forces should be
embraced in the light of the need for a much higher productivity of the European economy, securing its position in the world economy in spite of the
growing lack of workers, and the growing number of elderly claiming pensions.
In the coming years, more than ever, a modernized social policy has to function as a productive economic factor.
We should not repeat the dated trade off between social and economic factors, nor between government rules and free market competition. We need both;
but in an appropriate composition. We need a stronger international cooperating government focussed on an obligatory permanent training; legal rights for
decent part-time jobs, an effective public employment service; a new public investment program in education, health care, public transportation, and
environmental protection.
If the European Community endorses such a program, it stands in the best tradition of European social policy, which has to reconcile with economic policy,
as in the last century. But only on the condition that we identify at the right time the right dilemmas.
If so, I am sure we will be able to compete with every region in the world, and economic performance might be better than elsewhere, because of this
ability to cope with flexibility and globalization. The ability to cope with flexibility and globalization should be seen as our mission, not our problem.
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Annecy Conference Papers