Abstract
Job flexibility is a polysemic concept. Blossfeld et al. (2005a) have listed some of its meanings. Flexibility can be: (a) numerical flexibility, using fixed-term contracts or layoffs; (b) functional flexibility when employees multitask and adjust their jobs to the company’s changing needs; (c) salary flexibility when salaries are adjusted; (d) time flexibility when hours and work schedules vary; and, finally, (e) another type of flexibility that occurs when companies outsource work by hiring the services of other companies to do some jobs or subcontract self-employed people. Edgell (2006), in turn, distinguishes four kinds of non-standard paid work. These are contract flexibility (self-employed), spatial flexibility (home workers), time flexibility (temporary workers), and total flexibility (paid informal workers), to which he adds part-time work, a kind of under-employment.
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© 2011 Juan-Ignacio Martínez-Pastor and Fabrizio Bernardi
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Martínez-Pastor, JI., Bernardi, F. (2011). The Flexibilization of the Spanish Labour Market: Meaning and Consequences for Inequality from a Life-Course Perspective. In: Blossfeld, HP., Buchholz, S., Hofäcker, D., Kolb, K. (eds) Globalized Labour Markets and Social Inequality in Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230319882_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230319882_4
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