Economic globalization has intensified since the 1980s and created faster channels of international interdependence and an accelerating technology race. In this new asymmetric world economy the EU is facing a dynamic and flexible US system which takes advantage of the global quest for foreign...

This book seeks to gain a better understanding of the paradoxical relationship between the alleged need of European labour markets to become more flexible and the way in which national policies pursue this aim without jeopardising existing high standards of income and employment security....