The modern labour market is undergoing rapid change. Much of the change can be traced from the internationalization that the EU has brought forth which demands that companies can adapt to international competition to a higher degree than ever before. The most common strategy to do this is to utilize various flexibility strategies. In Sweden new legislation has been implemented in the national (1982:80) Employment protection act. The new regulation allows employers to adjust workers' employment rate on the grounds of shortage of work. This must now be done in accordance with the rules of priority and the affected worker has gained the right to an adjustment period.  The regulation that allows employers to adjust workers' employment rate is ultimately a way for the employer to achieve flexibility, often it is argued, at the expense of the workers security in their employment. To combat this trade-off where flexibility means less security the EU has come up with a strategy for a more comprehensive approach where “the aim is for workers to exchange traditional security in the job for security in the market [...]”. This strategy is called flexicurity.  The purpose of this paper is to study how the Swedish lawmakers have chosen to balance the employers need for flexibility against the workers need for safety. This has been done, mainly, through the use of socio-legal method combined with various theories. We have studied how different factors, that aim to improve the workers' security, can be used to combat the negative effects of employers' right to adjust workers' employment rate on the grounds of shortage of work.  Our findings indicate that women and young employees in particular are affected by the implementation of flexibility strategies with intention to alter the employment rate. And that there's an inherent economic risk that transfers from the employer to the employee.