More generally, these observations imply that the effect of regulations on fixed-term contracts cannot be seen in isolation, but it is conditional on the degree of stringency of EP for regular contracts. This has led many academics to suggest that it would be preferable to replace existing regular and temporary contracts with a unique permanent labour contract, with workers’ protections increasing with job tenure (e.g. Blanchard and Tirole, 2003, Dolado et al., However, some caution is required here insofar as temporary contracts often respond to specific temporary company needs and excessively restricting them might result in an overwhelming burden for employers, while not solving all inequality issues such as those concerning access to credit and housing, notably in the case of youth (see e.g. Lepage-Saucier et al., In particular, certain types of temporary-work-agency contracts - that is contractual relationships in which workers are hired by an agency and temporarily assigned for work into a user firm -provide workers with a degree of protection which is close to that of regular workers while, at the same time, offering enough flexibility to user firms as regards the performance of temporary tasks outside their main business activities (see Section 2).