trends in employment stability and labour market segmentation

CHAPTER II I
- What kind of change can we observe in
income structures and wage systems?
- Are there new forms of labour market segmentation,
for example a new kind of secondary
market for academics with basic
general skills or new “professionals”?
- Who are the winners and who are the losers
of these processes?
- Which new forms of social inequality and
social marginalisation are emerging?
- What will be the reactions of the different
sectors of the public educational system?
- How and when do industrial relations
change, what about unions, works councils
and labour law?
- How do the institutions of labour markets
and social policies adapt to the development?
What sort of friction and conflict evolves
over time?
The answering of all these questions requires
a very detailed and up-to-date observation and
description of all contributing factors. This can
only partly be realised by available data, consequently
the need for further empirical studies,
preferably in form of a panel, is imminent. The
interest in intelligent international comparisons
is obvious, but so are the inherent difficulties of
such a venture. I suppose we will be discussing
this in detail today and tomorrow.
8. TWO SETS OF THEORETICAL
QUESTIONS
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From the theoretical perspective
there are two sets of interrelated questions,
which arise when preconditions of Internal
Labour Markets erode and companies more and
more fall back on the External Labour Market.
One set of questions deals with economic,
social and political preconditions of External
Labour Markets for skilled labour. What are
the new economic structures, norms, and institutions
that become necessary to generate a
sufficient supply of skilled workers for specific
jobs, occupations and professions?
The other set of questions is concerned with
the level and type of skills and competencies,
which until now have been generated in ILM
and more and more are exchanged in External
Labour Markets.
Up to now, the structure of and the processes
in Internal Labour Markets have been at
the centre of empirical and theoretical research
on labour markets. Consequently, sociologists,
economists, and scholars of organisation theory
alike are not very well prepared to deal with the
two sets of questions. Therefore the following
considerations are of a provisional and rather
idiosyncratic nature.
9. FIRST THEORETICAL QUESTION: INSTITUTI-
ONS
A strong regulation and institutional restructuring
is a necessary precondition for
External Labour Markets which are more than
spot markets for unskilled labour. As functional
equivalents to important structural elements
of Internal Labour Markets a consistent set
of norms, institutions, incentives and sanctions
is indispensable. How this institutional
regulation is to be shaped and if fundamental
innovation is necessary or whether a reform of
existing institutions is sufficient, is of considerable
scientific interest.