Towards Increasing Labour Market Flexibility

Abstract

Since 1984 the local authority in Pitea in northern Sweden has facilitated leave of absence and part-time retirement among its employees. The purpose behind this new policy was to set more jobs free for others to be recruited to It was assumed that the number of replacements would increase through this kind of voluntary reduction of work In the present article some of the results of the Pitea experiment are described The number of cases of granted leave of absence and part-time retirement rose considerably in 1984 compared to the year before The experiment also led to a clear augmentation of vacancies filled by replacements The estimated difference corresponds to at least 22 full-time jobs lasting for a year This means a little less than one and a half per cent of the municipal work force counted in full-time employees At the end of the article two issues are briefly discussed, the consequences of increased labour market flexibility for women and the possibility of drawing general conclusions from the Pitea experience