These firing costs along with complex dismissal procedures play a key role in depressing hiring rates on permanent contracts of new labour market entrants, such as youth. In addition, very short trial periods are likely to discourage the hiring of young people whose productivity is difficult to judge ex-ante. Finally, the use of fixed-term contracts and temporaiy-work agencies is highly regulated although loose enforcement translates in their frequent use. This strict protection of formal workers may be one factor behind the spreading of informal employment and disguised self-employment whereby an employee-type relationship is masked as independent work for a single client/employer.