Working-Time Arrangements: What can New Zealand learn from EU countries?

Flexibility has been a major labour market issue in all OECD countries in the past two decades with a strong employer push for increased flexibility. The growth in atypical employment and working time patterns has also increased concerns over the economic and social impacts of these new patterns in many countries. In New Zealand, labour market deregulation coincided with a growth in shorter and longer weekly working hours and with the traditional 40-hour working week becoming less prevalent. Since the shift in political power in 1999, there have been changes to employment relations legislation and there has also been a search for ‘models’ where new working time patterns are associated with positive economic and social impacts. This paper provides a comparison between New Zealand, the Netherlands and Denmark. While all of the three countries have had major changes in working time patterns over the last two decades, they have experienced different types of changes and the impacts of these changes have also varied considerably. The Dutch and Danish changes may provide some interesting ideas for New Zealand policy makers, employers and unions as they grapple with the wider issues - such as public policy regulation, organisational efficiency, work-life balance, employee preferences and choices – associated with the working time debate.