EXTERNAL FLEXIBILITY IN SWEDEN AND CANADA - A 3-INDUSTRY COMPARISON

There is a substantial body of writing that identifies efficiency adva ntages from the provision of employment security, both within individu al plants and at the level of the national economy. However, the busin ess cycle persists in capitalist economies, so the question arises: ho w do managements deal with the fluctuations in the demand for labour w hich are associated with it? That is to say, what are management polic ies with respect to external flexibility? In North America, segmenting jobs into stable and unstable ones is thought to have provided a solu tion; in Scandinavia, until recently, full employment policies were th ought to have eliminated the problem. In this paper, we compare the po licies with respect to employment security adopted in a sample of plan ts in three industries in Canada and Sweden. Our evidence suggests tha t policies with respect to external flexibility are influenced by the character of demand for what is being produced, by the technology of p roduction, and by the institutional structure within which firms opera te. Our evidence also indicates to what degree employment security is, itself, insecure.