The outstanding performance of some nations in Central and Northern Europe such as Denmark and the Netherlands in the labor market is much indebted to their policy to help labor flexicurity. In this study, the possibility of replicating the Dutch or Danish performance in the labor market is explored in case of adopting such policy in the 22 OECD countries.
 

If implementing the flexicurity policy in the 22 member countries of the OECD leads to strong performance in the labor market, this policy can be globally shared as universal labor policy to provide a win-win situation among  the labor, management and the authorities on the matter, paving the way for replacing the Anglo-Saxon policy characterized by high flexibility and low security, or the European alternative with a lower level of flexibility and a  higher level of security.

Our research results show that flexicurity policy is likely to bring significant benefits in the labor market, as illustrated by growth in the employment rate, the fall in the unemployment rate, and some progress in alleviating poverty. Therefore, policy to help labor flexicurity can have a far-reaching positive effective on the labor-market performance, which is not limited to some countries of Central or Northern Europe. Despite their striking difference in the inherent conditions, OECD countries are also expected to enjoy favorable outcomes from adopting the same policy as that of their Central or Northern European counterparts.

The abovementioned discussion has profound implications for Korea. As indicated by case studies, flexicurity policy originally employed in the Netherlands and Denmark is particularly attractive. In addition, our empirical research suggests that flexicurity policy results in strong performance in the labor market regardless of which country the policy is exported into. So, it’s plausible that Korea’s labor market will also benefit from adopting flexicurity policy. Now, the question boils down to detailed measures of how to improve both flexibility and security. For greater flexibility, it is worth considering allowing firms more discretion in hiring and firing like Denmark or promoting the use of part-time workers like the Netherlands. For income security, it is required to come up with specific programs tailored to the actual conditions of the Korean labor market, and related issues include what percentage of the former salary should be given as unemployment benefit, how to carry out job training, how to manage the social safety net, and so on. one undeniable thing is that the policy to help labor flexicurity has settled down as a major trend in the labor policy of OECD countries.