This book examines the concept of the single employment contract, tracing it from its genesis and evaluating its pros and cons in the context of the current labour market problems in selected European countries. The book adopts a comparative approach to examining the single employment contract, highlighting its virtues and revealing its inherent contradictions. The authors set out the general framework within which the current debate has developed by outlining the origins that gave rise to the proposal of a single employment contract. They then review the debate on labour market segmentation and the flexicurity proposal, and examine the key characteristics of the single employment contract as well as the arguments put forward both for and against it. Case studies show how the idea has been taken up in France, Italy and Spain. The book concludes with a concise review of contractual arrangements in EU labour markets and of possible future projections and developments. The book is aimed at academics and practitioners interested in labour market and labour legislation reforms. The book is a co-publication between Hart Publishing and the International Labour Organization.

The issue of who is or is not in an employment relationship has become problematic in recent decades as a result of major changes in work organization as well as in the adequacy of legal regulation in adapting to such changes. In different parts of the world there is increasing difficulty in establishing whether or not an employment relationship exists in situations where the respective rights and obligations of the parties concerned are not clear, where there has been an attempt to disguise the employment relationship, or where inadequacies or gaps exist in the legal framework or in its interpretation or application. Vulnerable workers appear to suffer most in these situations. At the same time, social partners and labour administrators have emphasized that globalization has increased the need for protection against circumvention of national labour legislation by contractual and/or other legal arrangements. The employment relationship is under ever-closer scrutiny, not only by labour lawyers, but also by workers, employers and the judiciary. Changes in the world of work have modified traditional notions of the employment relationship. These changes in the 'standard employment relationship' shape the scope of protection and application of labour legislation and automatically affect the way labour law is implemented. This book presents the ways the scope of labour legislation applies to the realm of the employment relationship. Terms, notions, definitions, laws and practice in the various regions of the world are herein reported.