Defining Flexicurity Indicators for the Public Sector in Europe

The paper concerns the definition and testing of flexicurity indicators for the public sector in Europe and in particular the public administration sector. The main aim is to elaborate a methodology based on static and dynamic institutional and outcome indicators to assess how well the public sector performs with regard to balancing flexibility and security compared to the private sector. The paper is prepared for the EU-Project: 'Restructuring and employment conditions: How to monitor the modernization of public administration'. Use is made of comparative data on employment and income and on company practices in Europe with respect to flexitime arrangements, more specifically the SILC data for 2003-2008 and the European Company Survey held in 2009. Subsequently, we examine how the various labor markets perform according to the developed indicators. Our aim is not to elaborate a comprehensive set of indicators but to define a limited number that permits to get a deeper insight into the main issues the public sector and in particular the public administration confront