The article argues for the importance of employment reform as a subject for international HRM scholarship. Employment reform has been one of the most significant, but also most neglected, recent intiatives in international HRM. Explanations by the World Bank and IMF for the poorer than expected outcomes of reform to date empahsize the importance of political commitment. They are compared with explanations for the similary poor outcomes of downsizing in industrial country organizations, which emphsize strategy, diagnosis, incrementalism and provision for retrenchees. Further clarification is provided by the results of field interviews in Ghana, Malaysia, South Africa, Sri Langka, Uganda and the UK. The article argues for a strategic approcach to employment reform, one based on diagnosis and drawing on HRM expertise. It should take account of process factors in reform, make provision for the'victim' of reform , loosen the link between employment reform and pay reform, and refine the role of donors in supporting reform. HRM practitioners and scholars have an important contribution to make to developing a new approach.