Flexibility and security: an asymmetrical relationship?
transitions, cooperation between firms in defining skill requirements and establishing skill de-
velopment programmes, and conditionality of unemployment benefits as well as monitoring of job
search efforts. 17
The third pathway aims at tackling skills and opportunity gaps among the workforce and is useful
for countries where there exist large skills and opportunities gaps among the population, in view of
helping low skilled people to develop their skills and enter into employment. The measures that could
help in this direction should focus at addressing the opportunity gaps at an early stage, in the initial
education system, and at strengthening the skills of the low-skilled workforce through coordinated
actions (e.g. validation of informal training, combination of work and training, introduction of indi-
vidual training accounts, tax incentives to enterprises to develop comprehensive skills strategies, etc.).
The overarching aim of these measures should be to enhance upward social mobility and avoid the
problem of the working poor.
The fourth pathway relates to improving opportunities for benefit recipients and informally em-
ployed workers. It is useful for countries that have recently gone through a major restructuring and
thus have large numbers of people on long-term benefits with few chances of returning to paid em-
ployment. This pathway puts emphasis on measures that facilitate the shift from informal to formal
employment through effective labour market policies, labour taxation reforms, and a more stringent
monitoring system to combat informal work. Regularizing informal work could be made more attrac-
tive by improving informal workers’ rights and providing access to professional training. At the same
time, measures to deter unemployed workers from taking up an informal job could be contemplated,
such as the increase of the unemployment benefit to an adequate level, the conditionality of benefits,
tailor-made job assistance to more vulnerable groups, more effective public employment services,
etc. The strengthening of bipartite and tripartite social dialogue structures should also be able to help
towards achieving this goal.
17 The Commission’s document does not make any mention, of course, of the excesses often involved in and the short-
comings of this monitoring system.
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