For the modern welfare state support for those who are `out of work through no fault of their own remains a foundation stone. Now, however, under pressure form market-driven ideology focused on business performance, its composition and the way support is delivered is in a state of flux. With the avowed objective of minimizing dependence on social benefits and increasing labour market efficiency, many national policies with varying degrees of thoroughness are shifting from a bureaucratic approach to some form of contract arrangement that demands a higher level of personal responsibility from the unemployed worker. The contractualisation process is usually administered through a `reintegration service that may be partly or wholly privatised.

This remarkable book is the first comparative in-depth study of the process of contractualisation. It offers seventeen penetrating analyses, by leading labour market and labour law authorities, of recent policy initiatives to activate employment by contract and the implications of these initiatives from both legal and a socioeconomic perspective. Among the issue explored are the following:

• motivation, mobility, and flexibility in the labour market;
• effect of contractualisation on public accountability and responsibility;
• effect on the individual's statutory relationship under social security;
• whether and to what extent the conditions on which one country successfully introduces contractualisation apply to other countries; and,
• the unemployed individual as `contract partner: what conditions can he or she set?

The analyses focus on experience with contracts as service deliverance in the labour markets of eight countries: Australia, the United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, and Finland. Because a certain measure of experience has already been built up by governments, providers, and clients, now is the time to try and learn form good as well as bad practices in order to build coherent institutional frameworks to help the unemployed. This book is sure to bring insight and effectiveness to the work of professionals, officials, and politicians in this policy field, and will be of special practical value to labour law practitioners, academic researchers and libraries, trade unions, policymakers, and corporate counsel.