Introduction

This chapter applies the transitional labour market (TLM) perspective to the (re)institutionalisation of education, training and labour markets in order to facilitate a new perspective on lifelong learning. Following this introduction, this chapter introduces TLM theory, and a related policy paradigm that has developed in the Netherlands over the past few years that operates under the label of ‘flexicurity’. Section three applies these general perspectives to the field of education, training and lifelong learning. Section four illustrates how a traditional institutional training model such as apprenticeship functions as a TLM to facilitate the transition from education to employment, and how similar models might serve to facilitate other transitions. Section five shows how the TLM perspective can be applied to an analysis of new developments by focusing on the example of the combination of apprenticeship and work placements for the unemployed in the Netherlands. Section six then discusses the contribution of TLM and flexicurity perspectives to the concept of Integrated Transition Policies (ITPs) that animates this book.

Transitional labour market theory and flexicurity

Transitional labour market theory argues that the borders between the labour market and other social systems have to become, and indeed are becoming, more open to transitory positions between paid work and gainful non-market activities that enhance and preserve future employability (Schmid, 2000, pp 223-34). It is based on three interrelated principles:

• • labour markets are inevitably exposed to shocks to which workers or employees have to adjust; hence, chaotic patterns of employment/unemployment are increasingly becoming a fact of life for everybody;

• • labour markets are social institutions, whose adjustment through wage flexibility is limited as status and human dignity forbid wages below a certain level. Therefore, they require effective and socially legitimate institutions of adjustment;

• • enforced or unplanned idleness of labour can be used positively, but newly constructed buffers are required. TLMs are the solution in providing functional equivalents to the ‘hinterland’ of the traditional subsistence economy, or social security through the family network (Schmid, 2000, pp 227-8).

In sum, TLMs can be regarded as institutional responses to critical events in labour markets. Critical transitions can be said to occur when events result in a change in assumptions about oneself and the world, and thus require a corresponding change in one's behaviour and relationships. Events that change important elements of social networks (such as actual or potential job losses) are especially critical.