Precarity. The Economic-Political and Social Phenomenon of the Contemporary World

This article examines the applicability of the concept and term precarity as a signifier delineating the effects of the restructuring of work and working conditions determined by neoliberal regimes. In terms of intensified global competitiveness, the total working population is being subjected to the pressures of market regulation. Short-term and unstable working contracts have become a typical occurrence in post-industrial society, whereas the notion of time as a resource has gained an entirely different dimension. The hegemony of clock time has declined due to the requirement to be permanently open to the global market and its imperatives of being constantly on standby, available and flexible. The interweaving of the cultural-historical micro-perspective and socio-economic macro-perspective point to the various tendencies of management and the quantification of working time, bringing up the problematic of the precarity trap and economic insecurity. In this context, the example of Croatia is briefly analysed.