In view of high and persistent unemployment in the European industrialised countries there is growing consensus that more flexibility is needed with regard to both the legal and institutional conditions governing the labour market (external flexibility) and the management of human resources...

Until the start of the seventies the situation on the labour markets of the European industrial states was considered with relative optimism. The high growth rates which most of the countries had achieved seemed to be sufficient to absorb the increases in the available labour force. The author...