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...

From the mid-1980s until 2005 the German labour market was characterised by continuous deregulation. In the period of an improving German labour market, the German governments have since imposed measures to re-regulate the labour market in order to strengthen employees' rights. At the same time...