Sort each feature by whether it belongs to the core or the peripheral workforce in Atkinson’s flexible firm model.

Core workforce: Trained by the employer in firm-specific skills, Expected to move between tasks as needs change

Peripheral workforce: Engaged through agencies or short contracts as demand requires, Numbers adjusted quickly when output falls, Engaged for a single project and released at its end

The model’s insight is that the two groups supply different kinds of flexibility: the core is flexible in what it does, the periphery in how many of them there are. That is why firms invest in training one and not the other, and why a downturn is absorbed almost entirely by the second group regardless of relative performance.