On the labor front: The problem of the fictitious employee

Th e increase of fixed-term work has led to diminished job security. It appears
that the different types of employees do not evenly work on this basis. Young
employees, women and poorly educated employees relatively often have a temporary labor contract. Th e role of the unions has proved to be important in this
respect, consolidating the interests of their members. They have little to gain from
increased flexibility in the dismissal legislation; fi xed-term workers, by contrast,
benefit from such changes as their chances to be employed on a permanent basis
increase. The various interests can only properly be balanced by changing the law
in such a way that employees’ contracts depend on their capabilities rather than
on irrelevant factors.