Capturing Flexibility and Insecurity Through Statistics

1
Capturing Flexibility and Insecurity Through
Statistics

• Azfar Khan, ILOSocio-Economic Security Programme

2
Instruments

• Enterprise Labour Flexibility and Security
  Surveys (ELFS)
• Establishment level

• People Security Surveys (PSS)
• Individual level

3
Flexibility and Security Structure
4
Flexibility and Security Structure
5
Institutional Considerations

• A reorientation of regulatory systems
• greater emphasis on individual freedom and less
  on collective action or protection

• Technological change
• accelerating changes in production techniques
• making multi-site production possible
• making decentralization and out-sourcing more
  feasible and profitable
• more options for labour arrangements, payment
  systems, etc.

6
Perceived Considerations

• Global informalization of economic activity,
  involving a spread of forms of labour and work
  not covered by protective regulatory and social
  protection systems.

• Global growth of flexible production and labour
  markets, linked in part to the technological
  change and globalization, and involving the
  following

7
Perceived Considerations

• Organizational flexibility
• more turnover of firms, more use of
  sub-contracting and production chains, and a
  tendency to contract the employment function

• Numerical flexibility
• more use of external labour, such as contract
  workers, outworkers, homeworkers, agency labour,
  temporary workers, and teleworkers
• Functional flexibility
• greater change in work tasks, job rotation, and
  skill

8
Perceived Considerations

• Working time flexibility
• more continuous working, flexible hours, etc.

• Wage system flexibility
• a shift from fixed to flexible wages,
  monetization of remuneration, greater use of
  bonuses, etc.
• Labour force flexibility
• less attachment to sectors, companies or
  occupational groups, erosion of collective
  labour, and greater tendency for workers to move
  in and out of the labour market and labour force.

9
The Enterprise Labour Market
10
Labour Market Security
PSS

• Main work activity (by time spent)
• Work status
• Working for wages
• Regular/casual employment
• Contract labour
• Own account worker
• Primary or secondary activity

11
Measuring Social Income

• SI W EB SB PB CB

where W the money wage and/or money income
received from different types of economic
activities EB the total value of benefits
provided by the enterprise as non-wage benefits
and insurance type supports SB the total value
of benefits provided by the state, which are
taken to include citizenship benefits, insurance
based income transfers and discretionary
means-tested transfers PB total value of
benefits accruing from private income, either
through investments, ownership of assets and
privately contracted social protection CB the
benefits accruing through a reliance on
traditional communal and family support systems
12
Wage Flexibility Loop
13
Wage Flexibility Loop
14
Income Security
PSS

• Regularity of income
• Form of remuneration
• Main method of payment (wage based, piece rate,
  job based)
• Benefits (health care, maternity benefits,
  redundancy payments, pension entitlements,
  disability benefits, subsidies for schooling,
  etc.)

15
Employment Security
ELFS

• Labour turnover
• Changes in employment structure (regular vs.
  non-regular)

PSS

• Period of unemployment
• Terms of employment termination
• Severance payment
• Provision of other entitlements

16
Work Security
ELFS

• Number of work-related accidents, working time
  lost, etc.
• Committee/department to protect workers

PSS

• OSH conditions, workplace hazards

17
Skill Reproduction Security
ELFS

• Providing initial training, retraining, training
  to upgrade
• Forms of training
• Subsidizing training institute

PSS

• Access to training for regular and non-regular
  workers (especially for informal workers)

18
ELFS and PSS Carried Out
19
Discerned Results

• Labour Market Insecurity has grown almost
  globally, with much higher unemployment, slower
  rates of employment growth and higher labour
  slack.

• Employment Insecurity is high and rising, with
  growing proportions of those in the labour force
  having insecure employment statuses and with more
  workers lacking employment protection.

20
Discerned Results

• Work Insecurity has become greater, due to more
  people being in work statuses without coverage by
  protective institutions and regulations.

• Job Insecurity has worsened, with more workers
  having to switch jobs and learn new tricks of
  working.
• Skill Reproduction Insecurity is considerable
  with flexibility, in part because skills become
  obsolescent more quickly and because few workers
  are receiving career skills.