by Nick Wailes & Russell D. Lansbury

I. The types of flexibility introduced

During the 1980s and 1990s, a number of changes to labour market regulation have been introduced which potentially impact on the level of external labour market flexibility. Changes in dismissal procedures, and to a lesser extent redundancy provisions, under the Labour government increased the level of employment security for Australian workers. While these changes might be regarded as undermining external numerical flexibility, they were consistent with the view that labour market flexibility needed to be coordinated and based on a set of clearly defined basic rights, which characterized Labour's approach to the relationship between collective bargaining and labour market flexibility. At the same time, changes associated with the decentralization of bargaining under Labour have facilitated the growth of non-standard forms of employment which can be used to enhance external numerical flexibility.

Changes introduced by the current federal Liberal and National Coalition Government, elected in March 1996, have attempted to reduce the extent of employment security, based on the assumption that these changes will increase external numerical flexibility and consequently will encourage employment growth. The current government has also continued the policies which have facilitated the growth of non-standard employment forms.