Vermeylen, Greet

In the rapidly changing world of work, the traditional dichotomy of employee and self-employed is insufficient to capture the wide diversity of self-employed workers in Europe today. This report identifies five categories of self-employed, ...

Working time is a recurrent topic of study because the nature of work, its content, the conditions under which it is performed and the labour market itself keep changing. This report provides an overview of the recent evolution of working time duration and organisation in the EU and highlights the most important trends and differences between Member States.

The ageing of the EU’s population and workforce has implications for employment, working conditions, living standards and welfare. This report draws on the expertise of four EU Agencies in their respective areas, covers the policy challenges associated with the ageing workforce and considers innovative solutions.

New information and communications technologies have revolutionised work and life in the 21st century. The constant connectivity enabled by these devices allows work to be performed at any time and from almost anywhere. This joint report by the ILO and Eurofound synthesises the findings of national studies from 15 countries, plus the European Working Conditions Survey, to consider the effects of telework and ICT-mobile work (T/ICTM) on the world of work.

In this article, originally posted in Social Europe Journal, senior programme manager Greet Vermeylen highlights why making work sustainable is an important issue for Europe.

In recent years, practices such as outsourcing and contracting-out have increasingly blurred the boundaries between dependent employment and self-employment. A new group of workers has emerged, which comprises workers who are formally ‘self-employed’, but present some characteristics of employees. These ‘economically dependent workers’ usually have a commercial contract (or ‘service contract’) rather than an employment contract; they are therefore registered as self-employed when in reality their working conditions have a lot in common with those of employees. The purpose of this short exploratory paper is to investigate the position of these economically dependent workers and to find out whether overall their working conditions are more similar to those of the self-employed or to those of employees. This exercise builds on data from the 2010 wave of the European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS).

Work plays a significant role in the lives of people, companies and society at large. Since its inception, the European Union has paid considerable attention to work, and improving working conditions is one of its key policy goals. The European Working Conditions Survey series (the ‘EWCS’) aims to: Measure working conditions across European countries on a harmonised basis; analyse relationships between different aspects of working conditions; identify groups at risks and issues of concern, as well as areas of progress; monitor trends over time; and contribute to European policy development, in particular on quality of work and employment issues. This report analyses the findings of the fifth European Working Conditions Survey, carried out in 2011-2012.

This report is based on the second EQLS carried out in 2007-8 and offers a wideranging view of the diverse social realities in the 27 Member States, as well as covering Norway and the candidate countries of Turkey, Macedonia and Croatia. The report presents the views and experiences of people living in Europe across a set of key domains: employment and income, family and community life, health and housing. It looks at factors influencing wellbeing and happiness and reflects people’s views on the quality of the society in which they live.

EU policymakers recognise that improving working conditions is crucial to achieving a better quality of work, greater productivity and increased employment – the Lisbon objectives. In this context, the Foundation’s European Working Conditions Surveys, conducted every five years, have been providing a valuable insight into key aspects of work since 1990. This report analyses the findings of the fourth survey, carried out in autumn 2005 across 31 countries, including the 27 EU Member States. Based on workers’ responses, it paints a broad and varied picture of the physical, intellectual and psychological dimensions of work and its impact on personal fulfilment and work-life balance.