The substantial fixed administrative burden that is associated with employment protection may make it relatively more costly to fire low-income workers, so that EPL raises the bargaining power of low-income earners more than that of their high-income counterparts (Boeri et al., The negative effect of EPL on wage dispersion has been found to be stronger in the presence of minimum wages, which prevent firms from passing the cost of EPL on to low-income workers (Koeniger et al., If EPL is much stricter for regular than for temporary contracts, this may contribute to higher inequality since workers at the margin of the labour market such as the young risk getting trapped as they move between temporary work and unemployment, with adverse implications for human capital and career progression (OECD, 2004).