{
  "url": "https://openlegislation.uk/eu-decision-2008-618/annex/division-Guidelines/division-2",
  "json_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/eu-decision-2008-618/annex/division-Guidelines/division-2.json",
  "legislation": "eudn/2008/618",
  "legislation_title": "Council Decision of 15 July 2008 on guidelines for the employment policies of the Member States (2008/618/EC)",
  "legislation_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/eu-decision-2008-618",
  "path": "annex/division/Guidelines/division/2",
  "kind": "division",
  "number": "2",
  "heading": "Improve adaptability of workers and enterprises",
  "text": "Europe needs to improve its capacity to anticipate, trigger and absorb economic and social change. This requires employment-friendly labour costs, modern forms of work organisation, promoting ‘good work’ and well-functioning labour markets allowing more flexibility combined with employment security to meet the needs of companies and workers. This should also contribute to preventing the emergence of segmented labour markets and reducing undeclared work (see also Guidelines 18, 19, 20 and 23).\nIn today’s increasingly global economy with market opening and the continual introduction of new technologies, both enterprises and workers are confronted with the need, and indeed the opportunity, to adapt. While this process of structural change is overall beneficial to growth and employment, it also brings about transformations which are disruptive to some workers and enterprises. Enterprises must become more flexible to respond to sudden changes in demand, adapt to new technologies and innovate constantly, in order to remain competitive.\nThey must also respond to the increasing demand for job quality related to workers’ personal preferences and family changes, and they will have to cope with an ageing workforce and fewer young recruits. For workers, working life is becoming more complex as working patterns become more diverse and irregular and an increasing number of transitions need to be managed successfully throughout the lifecycle. With rapidly changing economies, workers must be furnished with lifelong learning opportunities, in order to cope with new ways of working, including enhanced exploitation of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Changes in working status with associated risks of temporary losses of income should be better accommodated through the provision of appropriate modernised social protection.\nTo successfully meet these challenges an integrated flexicurity approach is needed. Flexicurity involves the deliberate combination of flexible and reliable contractual arrangements, comprehensive lifelong learning strategies, effective active labour market policies and modern, adequate and sustainable social protection systems.\nMember States should implement their own flexicurity pathways, based on the common principles adopted by the Council. These principles serve as a useful basis for reforms, framing national policy options and specific national arrangements in the field of flexicurity. There is no single pathway and no single principle is more important than another.\nGuideline 21. Promote flexibility combined with employment security and reduce labourmarket segmentation, having due regard to the role of the social partners, through:\nthe adaptation of employment legislation, reviewing where necessary the different contractual and working time arrangements,\naddressing the issue of undeclared work,\nbetter anticipation and positive management of change, including economic restructuring, notably changes linked to trade opening, so as to minimise their social costs and facilitate adaptation,\nthe promotion and dissemination of innovative and adaptable forms of work organisation, with a view to improving quality and productivity at work, including health and safety,\nsupport for transitions in occupational status, including training, self-employment, business creation and geographic mobility.\nSee also integrated guideline ‘To promote greater coherence between macroeconomic, structural and employment policies’ (No 5).\nTo maximise job creation, preserve competitiveness and contribute to the general economic framework, overall wage developments should be in line with productivity growth over the economic cycle and should reflect the labour market situation. The gender pay gap should be substantially reduced. Particular attention should be given to explaining and addressing the reasons for the low wage levels in professions and sectors which tend to be dominated by women. Efforts to reduce non-wage labour costs and to review the tax wedge may also be needed to facilitate job creation, especially for low-wage employment.\nGuideline 22. Ensure employment-friendly labour cost developments and wage-setting mechanisms by:\nencouraging social partners within their own areas of responsibility to set the right framework for wage bargaining in order to reflect productivity and labour market challenges at all relevant levels and to avoid gender pay gaps,\nreviewing the impact on employment of non-wage labour costs and where appropriate adjust their structure and level, especially to reduce the tax burden on the low-paid.\nSee also integrated guideline ‘To ensure that wage developments contribute to macroeconomic stability and growth’ (No 4).",
  "extent": "E+W+S+N.I.",
  "status": null,
  "version": "current",
  "annotations": [],
  "outstanding_effects": [],
  "provenance": {
    "source": "legislation.gov.uk",
    "source_url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eudn/2008/618/annex/division/Guidelines/division/2",
    "retrieved_at": "2026-11-01T15:16:45.397501+00:00"
  },
  "licence": "Open Government Licence v3.0",
  "licence_url": "https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/",
  "attribution": "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives."
}