Why not? It is one of the consequences of removing labor rights. It's a difficult balance: too many labor rights will stifle the economy, too few will stifle the worker.

I am happy that in most European countries workers are entitled to a 40 or 48 hour work week, plenty of holidays, and paid overtime. Because life is not only work...

One area where more flexibility is required in Southern European, and even Western European, countries is making it easier to hire and fire an employee.

I might have been unclear, the question wasn't entirely rhetorical. In my experience "more flexibility" generally leads to weakening of labour rights, more part time, more time limited contracts -- and more of the things featured in the above comment.

In short, in a buyers market (employers purchasing wage labour) -- without regulation, the buyers hold all the keys (starve or work - that's not a choice).

If you have any examples of de-regulation of a labour market benefiting the majority of the population over say a ten or twenty year period, I'd love to hear about it.

I, too, might have been unclear. You were citing a description of a highly, highly regulated labor market as an example of what might come to pass were that market deregulated.

>If you have any examples of de-regulation of a labour market

Because that ever happens. C'mon.

> buyers market (employers purchasing wage labour)

That's not what 'buyer's market' means.

>> buyers market (employers purchasing wage labour) > > That's not what 'buyer's market' means.

That parentheses explain what I mean by market (the labour market) -- was that unclear? The rest of that sentence tried to highlight what "A situation in which supply exceeds demand, giving purchasers an advantage over sellers in negotiations" generally means in the labour market.

If one side might loose a few days of productivity by holding out for a better deal, and the other side will loose their home and starve -- that's a pretty uneven balance of power.