Job Security in the Face of Challenges of Labor Market Flexibilization in Serbia

Serbia, while undergoing its post-socialist transformation, began its integration into global economic courses. This path included both changes to labor laws and the creation of new regulatory mechanisms with the aim of achieving greater labor market flexibility. The trends of decreasing labor regulation in the context of the post-socialist transformation promote more independent management of the labor force by the employers with the aim of a more effective response to the dynamic changes in the market, which ultimately leads to concern in terms of job security for the future. From the point of the view of the worker, security is an important job aspect, providing continued economic stability but also in a certain sense allowing workers to plan their life activities. The subject matter of this paper is job security in the labor market in Serbia in the context of the transformation of the labor market in accordance with the requirements of flexibility. The basic aim of the paper is the identification of trends based on the criterion of job security, but at the same time the paper analyzes jobs based on the type of employment contract and the rate of informal employment. The results indicate a noticeable trend of decrease in permanent employment with a subsequent increase in temporary employment. At the same time, the relatively stable rate of informal employment indicates that labor market flexibilization did not achieve the goal of “transferring” informal workers from the illegal into the legal sphere of employment.