At Your Service?

The dynamics and implications of employment growth in private sector services have become a key issue in the debate on labour market organisation, social regulation and welfare policies in Western Europe. While expansion of private services is considered crucial to fight unemployment and social exclusion, the private services are often associated with social polarisation, untamed flexibility, and erosion of the standard employment relationship, trade unionism and collective bargaining - confronting the social and political actors with difficult dilemmas. In view of the limited knowledge about developments in services labour markets, the aim of this book is, on the basis of eleven country studies, to provide a comparative overview of main trends in the pattern of employment and labour relations in private sector services in Western Europe. The analyses emphasise the heterogeneity of the private sector services, reveal significant diversity across countries, and caution against the notion of a universal de-standardisation of service employment, underscoring the importance of institutions in shaping national trajectories of employment growth in services. Particular attention is paid to the challenges facing trade unions in meeting the diverse and changing aspirations of the workforce in private sector services.