Regular employment relationship: a discontinued model? : thoughts on an explanatory model for the change in employment forms

Abstract

"This report examines what factors could support the empirically emerging dynamics of the change in employment forms. The 'regular employment relationship' is frequently criticised as being overregulated, and the solution to the current labour market problems is seen in more flexibility concerning the arrangement of employment relationships. A differentiated view of labour market regulations, taking into account both legal and economic aspects, reveals many different ambivalences and conflicts of aims. An economic justification for restrictions in contractual freedom is therefore seen in the necessity to correct market failure due to distribution and allocation. However, employment law can also become the cause of policy failure. The empirical development - on the basis of evaluations of the microcensus - documents that movement has entered the employment structure since the mid-1980s. Regular employment relationships, defined as employment contracts of white- and blue-collar workers in full-time permanent employment excluding agency workers, have become less significant in particular in the 1990s (1990/1995 from 59% to 56.2% of the whole working population) at the expense of part-time work and self-employment (excluding agriculture). Restructuring of significance in quantitative terms to fixed-term full-time employment or temporary agency work has not occurred so far. In contrast, other differentiations have increased, for example in the form of a greater significance of one-person businesses or marginal part-time employment. In the new Länder in the mid-1990s the employment structures still differed clearly from those in western Germany: regular employment relationships carried relatively more weight, whereas part-time work and forms of self-employment showed accordingly lower shares. On the whole the regular employment relationship so far remains by far the most common form of employment. The identification of possible determinants of the empirically emerging change in employment forms does not only help to analyse the development in the past, but also provides indications concerning a possible future development that could lead to approaches in labour market prognosis. According to shift analyses, sectoral and gender-specific changes in the employment structure explain the change in employment forms to only a small extent, it is more the case that causes which are independent of this predominate. Initial qualitative considerations are made about some further factors which influence the choice of an employment form. The report includes discussion of the effect of changes in legal regulations (e.g. the deregulation initiatives under way since 1985), in company personnel policy and in the supply behaviour of workers (e.g. due to the level of and changes in labour costs as well as earned income and transfer incomes) and finally the influence of the particular labour market situation (e.g. of unemployment as a 'push factor'). On the basis of the previous findings and considerations two scenarios seem to be conceivable for the change in employment forms: (1) increasing loss of importance of the regular employment relationship (as a result of an even wider variety of employment forms), (2) reform of the regular employment relationship (e.g. by lowering social insurance contributions) resulting in the slowing down of signs of disintegration. It is not yet possible to predict today which of the two scenarios will become established in the future labour market reality. It seems to be clear, however, that policy and the social partners have creative scope and are able to influence development processes." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Hoffmann, E. & Walwei, U. (1998): Normalarbeitsverhältnis: ein Auslaufmodell? Überlegungen zu einem Erklärungsmodell für den Wandel der Beschäftigungsformen. In: Mitteilungen aus der Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, Vol. 31, No. 3, p. 409-425.