A FLEXIBLE FUTURE IN EUROPE - CHANGING PATTERNS OF EMPLOYMENT IN THE UNITED-KINGDOM

The aim is to consider the available evidence relating to changing patterns and conditions of employment so as to try to disentangle some of the longer term underlying trends from the more contingent and historically specific; and to show to what extent each has played its part in creating the labour force with which we enter the 1990s, with its particular occupational and industrial structure. The discussion will be divided into two main parts: firstly, an account of the changing size and composition of the economically active population of the UK, the distribution of those in employment by sector, industry and occupation, the level of unemployment and the characteristics of the unemployed. Secondly, we shall consider the somewhat more contentious issues regarding the changing nature of employment relations - the nature of the labour market, the conditions of employment for those in paid work, and the controversial notion of flexibility. In presenting this material an attempt will be made to draw comparisons between the situation in the UK, and longer and shorter term changes in that situation, and the situations and trends in a number of Western European societies which are also members of the EC. -from Author