women, older workers), although the lowest employment growth occurred in Portugal
in 2007 (0,3%) (European Commission 2008: 28). This has been achieved through flexible
real wage adjustment and the expansion of more flexible work contracts which remind
us of another important trait of the Portuguese labour market which lies in the
rigidity of labour regulations, particularly the employment protection legislation (EPL).
In this regard, we emphasize that, considering the discrepancy between law and practice15,
the Portuguese labour market should instead be envisaged, simultaneously, as
rigid and flexible. The Portuguese legislation regarding, for example, individual dismissals
of (permanent, full-time) workers and layoffs (restricted to the most extreme
cases) is considered to be very rigid. Nevertheless, there are several examples of practices
of circumventing or violating labour laws and/or labour rights recognized, namely,
by the Portuguese Constitution (e.g. abusive dismissals, non-renewal of fixed term
contracts) (Dornelas et al. 2006; Hespanha 1999; Silva Lopes 2003). In addition, if we
look back to the years following the 1975 revolution, we recognize that Portuguese
employers managed to respond to changes in economic activity and to the openness
of the Portuguese economy and its increasing integration into the EU resorting extensively
to renewable fixed, short-term contracts16. From then onwards, it has been a
recurrent strategy to increase flexibility through the development of insecure forms of
employment. Therefore, we emphasize that the reduced flexibility of the Portuguese
labour market can not be generalized, since there is a discrepancy between strict labour
regulations and their implementation, and also because it has different impacts
according to the type of employment contract (e.g. temporary employment, “regular”
– full-time, permanent - employment) and the size of enterprises. In this case we are
referring to the dual structure that, according to several academics (Kovács 2002;
Kovács 2004a; Pedroso et al. 2005; Silva Lopes 2003), characterizes the Portuguese labour
market: while some workers are entitled to high levels of employment protection,
others receive little protection from labour market regulations. This duality helps