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It is well recognised that job security has risen relative to pay in the hierarchy of employee concerns. Job security provisions won by or awarded to employees comprise high fixed costs from the employer's viewpoint. The firm's flexibility and adaptability to fluctuations in product demand are reduced thereby. For these reasons American employers have long resisted any form of job guarantee. The few who have made a fetish of such guarantees have been companies experiencing either long‐term growth or stable demand and have insured themselves against unsupportable fixed costs by strictly limiting the number to whom guarantees are made. Such practices add to the insecurities of those outside the guarantees. More employers are now succumbing to the pressures from employees, unorganised as well as organised, for job guarantees, but they too have protected themselves by use of temporary work devices as buffers against over‐commitment to permanent employees. The next employment policy issue after displaced workers may be some protection for the temporary workers who increasingly bear the brunt of fluctuations in labour demand.

Employability has been suggested as an alternative to job security in response to more flexible work arrangements, arguing that the important question for employees is no longer the security of their current job, but their employment security in the labour market. The purpose of this paper is to test two core assumptions of this argument: first, is employability associated with a lower preference for job security? And second, are individuals with lower job security in fact compensated with higher employability? Both assumptions have received criticism in recent literature. The focus is on employees’ perceived basic and aspiring employability. The former refers to employees’ expectations of remaining in employment and the latter to expectations of upward mobility.

The data used in the analysis were nationally representative Norwegian survey data from 12,945 employees (2009–2013).

Employees with higher aspiring employability and education levels have a significantly lower preference for job security, but this is not the case for employees with higher basic employability. Additionally, while employees with lower job security have higher aspiring employability, they have lower basic employability and receive less employer-supported training.

The current paper is the first to investigate how employability relates to the employees’ own preference for job security. In line with critics of the employability argument, the results support that job security continues to be an important protection mechanism. Moreover, employees with low job security lose out twice as employers also invest less in their training and future employability.

The paper seeks to examine the changes and continuities in industrial relations in post‐independence Namibia. In particular, it aims to explore some of the key elements in the process through which the distribution of the costs and rewards of economic and industrial restructuring is institutionalised.

The paper concentrates, through in‐depth interviews with key role players, on how the attempts at sustaining a durable and redistributive trade‐off between economic efficiency and social equality led to a contradictory fusion of neo‐liberal and neo‐corporatist forms of labour market regulation.

The research reveals that changes in the regulation of the labour market since independence have created opportunities for advancement and participation by groups of more skilled and organised employees, while weaker and less skilled groups have generally experienced a decline in employment conditions and the absence of collective representation. These developments reflect and reproduce patterns of racial and gender discrimination, industrial structure, trade union membership and collective bargaining across the various sectors and occupations.

The paper shows that a system of low‐skill, low‐wage and low‐trust relations – with an emphasis on cost reduction and employment “flexibility” – is fast becoming embedded in industrial relations in Namibia. Given the prevailing economic policies, industrial strategies and labour market structures, Namibia's integration into the global economy will most likely involve the increasing dislocation and exclusion of vulnerable and “peripheral” workers from the formal economy.

The paper highlights the ways in which the transformation of industrial relations in Namibia is shaped by the legacy of apartheid‐colonialism and the pressures of globalisation. Specifically, the conjunction of increasingly deregulated product markets and increasingly regulated labour markets has driven a wedge between the pursuit of short‐term objectives and the attainment of long‐term transformational goals.

This paper is about the effects of unemployment on consumption behaviour through “job security” in Switzerland. Based on a behavioural model of consumption the paper establishes the links between job security and consumption empirically. In a second step, perceived “job security” as reported in the Swiss Consumer Survey is then connected with the labour market. The paper finds that the record high level of unemployment since 1991 has mainly caused the observed deterioration of the perceived “job security”. Two different scenarios of unemployment rates are then developed to show the quantitative effects unemployment had on perceived “job security” and finally through this measure of consumer confidence on consumption expenditures. In conclusion the unusually high number of unemployed have acted as a psychological shock to change the subjective assessment of “job security” to such a degree that significant changes in consumer behaviour have resulted.

The appearance of job security demands at the bargaining table is on the rise in the United States. Job security has increased relative to income security in the hierarchy of employee concerns. Management has, in several instances, responded to these concerns. This piece will outline the many reasons behind, and offer examples of, the increased emphasis on job security provisions. It will also detail some of the current roadblocks in this area.

Using the concept of human security, the purpose of this paper is to explore the subjective perception of insecurities experienced by Thai subcontracted workers in industrial value chains and examines how they mitigate these insecurities.

This paper uses a qualitative approach and analyses the narratives from in-depth interviews with 23 female subcontracted workers in low-income communities in Bangkok, Thailand. Four male subcontracted workers were also interviewed to compare gender differences. Five key informant interviews with NGOs and academicians were conducted.

There are three main findings. First, subcontracted workers’ economic insecurities are influenced by their work and personal trajectories in the labour market. Second, many of their health and care-related insecurities are fuelled by relational rather than individual experience; that is, they are worried they will not be able to provide care for their children, to fulfil their responsibility as mothers, or they are concerned with the effects of their hazardous work environment on their family members. Third, most subcontracted workers mitigate their insecurities using their immediate relational network in the absence of formal protection.

While earlier literature on subcontracted workers’ vulnerabilities in Thailand discussed the issues from a politico-economic perspective, this paper uses the concept of human security, which enables us to better understand their insecurities as context-specific experiences in their daily lives.

The purpose of this paper is to prove that e-learning, in union with another variable, builds a statistically significant relationship for estimating improvements in employment security, i.e., transition to employment of the same or higher job security as the previous year.

Using data from Eurostat 2007-2013 in 28 European countries, and after carrying out analysis of 261 regression models between the e-learning variable, along with another variable related to working conditions, education, or e-skills levels of citizens.

This study provides evidence about: there is a statistically significant relationship (p-value<0.05) between employment security (dependent variable), e-learning and another variable (independent variables) in 60.7 percent of 28 European countries analyzed (p-value<0.05 for at least one of these two independent variables); and there is a statistically significant relationship (p-value<0.05) in 75 percent of 28 countries (p-value<0.1 for at least one of these two independent variables). Consequently, a set with the minimum number of useful indicators for calculating the employment security is proposed: e-learning, labor transition, tertiary education, temporary employees, e-job search and e-skills.

Moreover, several similarities between studied countries are found, helping to formulate various recommendations based on complementarities between being an employee and using lifelong e-learning systems as a way for improving employment security.

This is one of the first studies to provide evidence of the relationship between e-learning and job security in Europe, in view of this, it should be considered as a key element and essential to any European policy related to work.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the management of agency workers in Australia and, in particular, to identify the challenges presented to HRM by agency work.

After briefly reviewing the data on the incidence and growth of agency work in Australia, this paper examines the role of agency work in Australia from the perspective of the industry. Then it reviews both the evidence concerning the reasons for client organisations using agency workers and the attitudes of agency workers to their work. The paper concludes by assessing the implications of these findings for both for HR managers and HRM in general.

When the attitudes and preferences of agency workers are compared with those of direct employees it is found that agency workers are no more satisfied with their level of flexibility than direct workers and are in fact less satisfied with their job security, skill utilization and development, pay, autonomy and influence at work. Given these findings, it is argued that agency work may be incompatible with HR strategies that are based on high performance work practices.

This article gives helpful advice to HR managers in any organization that are in the market for agency workers.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce this special issue volume on vulnerable work and strategies for inclusion. Definitions, measurement, analysis and policy responses to vulnerable work and strategies for inclusion are addressed before the key aspects of the nine papers included in the special issue are summarised.

The topic of vulnerability at work is explored, before the distinguishing features of jobs that generate vulnerable conditions and the characteristics of vulnerable workers are identified.

Vulnerable work is insecure and irregular with few protections accorded to the vulnerable workers who are often characterised by their age, ethnic status, gender and skill profiles. The consequences include: poor job quality, low and irregular incomes and personal/family hardship. Vulnerability is widespread across the workforce, with workers subject to work intensification, employment insecurity and poor work-life balance.

Vulnerable work and workers constitute a growing and global phenomenon. Consequently, governments and employers need to work together on programmes, such as the ILO’s decent work agenda, to ensure that basic human rights at work are widely recognised and provision to ongoing employment, safe working conditions and regular hours are offered across a variety of industries/sectors.

This volume examines the conceptual, empirical and policy aspects of vulnerability in employment. It documents the international dimensions of vulnerability, the different forms it takes, those groups that are at risk of vulnerable employment and the underlying factors that generate and support vulnerability.