Brandsma, Nils

Around three-quarters of the EU workforce is employed in the service sector, and a sizeable portion of service workers interact directly with the recipients of the services they provide, such as clients, patients, pupils and so on. This can...

Although a small proportion of the EU workforce holds down more than one job, it is worth understanding the phenomenon better, not only because it is growing by degrees, but also because of the impact it can have on workers’ health and we...

This compendium of articles presents a snapshot of some of Eurofound’s most recent research, and highlights important 21st-century trends in quality of life and working conditions throughout the EU. It is organised around the six priority areas set out by the new European Commission for a transition to a fair, climate-neutral and digital Europe.

Employment statistics consistently show that having a foreign background has an influence on people’s employment prospects. Less is known about the types of jobs workers with foreign backgrounds hold and their working conditions. This policy brief contributes to filling this gap.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) met for the first time 100 years ago, and right at the top of the agenda for discussion for this new specialised UN agency was the 8-hour working day. This discussion subsequently resulted in the Hours of Work (Industry) Convention, which stated that ‘The working hours of persons employed in any public or private industrial undertaking or in any branch there of (…) shall not exceed eight in the day and forty-eight in the week.’ A century later and, despite radical technological change in almost every aspect of our lives, the 8-hour workday still largely defines working life throughout Europe.

This biennial review charts developments in a range of working time issues in the EU and Norway in 2017–2018. It finds that while the average collectively agreed working week across the EU remains unchanged since 2016 – at 38 hours – there was a slight decrease in the past two years in the 15 Member States that joined the EU before 2004 (the EU15).