any commercial entity that wants to remain relevant in today’s fast-changing business environment, Public Dialogue and Information Parliamentary Secretary Chris Said yesterday told a seminar on flexicurity organised by the Forum Malta fl-Ewropa and the Fondazzjoni Temi Zammit..

Staying in the market requires continuous efforts to effectively streamline production processes and practices and today people look for employment security rather than job security.

That is how the concept of flexicurity came about, he said. The term highlights the need to be flexible enough to embrace change, thus providing security against the risk of running out of business or losing employment. The subject is employment and not unemployment.

Flexicurity is a new way of looking at flexibility and security in work. It promotes a combination of flexible labour markets with a high level of employment and income security.

“Flexicurity is more about creating employment opportunities and less about job protection. The focus of flexicurity is to give people career opportunities and differs a lot from the traditional mentality of a job for life. Flexicurity is about a career path and is not limited to a particular job in life. It helps to mitigate the fear of losing a job because the emphasis is on progressing and getting better employment opportunities,” Dr Said said.

It is not easy to replace the notion of job security with a new culture of flexibility. Flexicurity represents a means by which employees and their employers can adapt better to insecurities associated with the global markets. Education and the emphasis on life-long learning are vital to realising the benefits of flexicurity.

Through effective public dialogue, the government believes that, in order to ensure that flexicurity delivers benefits to all, the active involvement of the social partners is a key factor.

The concept of Flexicurity was already discussed in depth at a meeting of the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development which was held on 6 June.

The social partners agreed on the way forward. A number of proposals by the MCESD will be passed to the government.