Employment and working conditions of the most vulnerable workers

00:00:33:26 Mary McCaughey: Hello and welcome to this edition of Eurofound Talks. Today, Eurofound Talks talks workers, but most specifically it talks vulnerable workers. Who are they? What do they represent? Where do we find them? And how are we responding to their needs? We know that over the last two decades or so, Europe's labour markets have undergone enormous transformation. There have been changes in the types of employment, so there's been a rise in non-standard forms of employment. More part-time work, more temporary work; the nine-to-five has dissipated. These are arrangements that do offer us more flexibility. But of course, with that flexibility comes some level of precariousness, some level of vulnerability, particularly when they are involuntary, when they have not been the choice of the worker, and when multiple disadvantages come together in that particular area. Eurofound has carried out a lot of work in the area of working conditions and, of course, employment conditions, not least through the most recent Working Conditions Survey, our eighth edition, the findings of which we first published last year and then continued publishing earlier in 2026. That research allows us to put an even greater spotlight on different cohorts of workers: where they exist, what sectors they're in, and how we are defining that level of vulnerability. This is certainly a challenge that's evolving across Europe, and perhaps even more so with the onset of digitalisation and the changes that it is bringing to the labour market and the workplace. So today we want to talk about the situation of vulnerable workers, and there's no better man to talk to me about that than Research Officer Karel Fric. You're very welcome.

00:02:34:20 Karel Fric: Hi Mary. Nice to be here.

00:02:38:00 Mary McCaughey: So can we start with the basics? What, in fact, do we mean by vulnerable workers? We hear terms like precarious work or non-standard work, but what are we talking about when we talk about vulnerable workers?

00:02:58:28 Karel Fric: All right. So in our research, we have a really job-based perspective. So we are talking about the qualities of the job itself rather than about the background of the workers. And when we talk about vulnerable work, we are looking at it as a multidimensional concept. So it means that it is a job that is identified by income inadequacy, employment insecurity, or a lack of workplace rights. This might sound a little bit cryptic, so I'll tell you a bit more in detail what it means. When we talk about inadequate income, we talk about people who earn less than 60% of the median income in a given country. When we talk about employment insecurity, here kicks in the involuntary part that you were talking about. It is involuntary part-time work, involuntary temporary work, or marginal part-time work, which is less than 15 hours a week.

00:03:53:02 Mary McCaughey: And when we talk about the lack of workplace rights?

00:04:00:20 Karel Fric: When we talk about the lack of workplace rights, we cover concepts such as lack of control over working hours or atypical working time.

00:04:29:16 Mary McCaughey: So again, these are workers who would prefer, potentially, to work more hours or who would prefer to work different hours?

00:04:36:06 Karel Fric: Exactly, exactly. And that is very important because, as you might have noticed, a lot of the parts of this definition of vulnerable work also cover non-standard employment. It is important to notice that not all non-standard employment is, by definition, vulnerable. It is exactly when it is involuntary or when multiple risk factors overlap at the same time.

00:04:56:14 Mary McCaughey: What do we mean by the multiple risk factors overlapping?

00:05:03:15 Karel Fric: For example, imagine a worker who is on temporary employment but is also working only marginal part-time, so ten hours a week. Or someone who is on a zero-hours contract and has a very low salary. Or someone who has very atypical working hours.

00:05:24:01 Mary McCaughey: Yes.

00:05:30:05 Karel Fric: And this is important because we view vulnerability as a spectrum. So it's not a binary distinction between vulnerable and non-vulnerable. We really look at and count how many vulnerability concepts are present at the same time within a given job.

00:05:50:21 Mary McCaughey: Again, they're job-based.

00:05:54:01 Karel Fric: Exactly. They're not related to homelessness, for example, or other elements of vulnerability that we consider outside the workplace.

00:05:59:29 Mary McCaughey: Okay. I'll talk about that. Okay, so when we're talking about this level of employment vulnerability, what is the sense of scale that we're looking at across the European Union?

00:06:04:05 Mary McCaughey: Has it increased over recent years? Are we seeing it concentrated in particular areas, particular countries, particular sectors?

00:06:21:12 Karel Fric: I'll start with a simple figure: 19%. When we identify workers who are at least vulnerable to a certain extent, it's 19% of the European workforce—one in five employees in 2021. In our research, we covered the period from 2009 to 2021, due to data availability. And we saw that the figure of 19% is not stable at all. We saw that following the 2008 financial crisis, the prevalence of vulnerability was increasing. It went from about 21% in 2009 to 24% in 2014, which means one in four employees was considered vulnerable. Exactly. After that, the situation in the labour market improved and vulnerability rates decreased to even pre-crisis levels, reaching 19% in 2021.

00:07:08:15 Mary McCaughey: Okay. But that being said, as you already noted, vulnerability rates differ between countries. So we have very high levels in countries such as Spain, Portugal or the Netherlands, but we have lower vulnerability levels in Central and Eastern European Member States. Do we know why that is, Karel?

00:07:18:06 Karel Fric: Yes. It's a bit contradictory, right? Because you would expect that it would be the other way around. But it is caused by the different patterns that feed into vulnerability. So I introduced the concepts of income inadequacy, employment insecurity and workplace rights, and we see that in each country the mix of these contributors is different. For example, in countries such as the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal, it would be employment insecurity that drives vulnerability. On the other hand, in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, it is income inadequacy that dominates vulnerability. And I can really go down the rabbit hole here because the index through which we calculate vulnerability allows us to compare not only the incidence—how many employees are vulnerable—but also the depth of vulnerability: how many vulnerability dimensions are present within a given employee. And we see that, for example, in the Netherlands, vulnerability is spread widely. So there are a lot of employees who are vulnerable, but at the same time they would be vulnerable in about one dimension. Right?

00:08:43:21 Mary McCaughey: But due to the sheer scale.

00:08:47:00 Karel Fric: Yeah, the sheer scale of vulnerability means the Netherlands would rank high on the scale. Spain would be another example. This is a country where relatively fewer employees would be vulnerable. But when they are vulnerable, multiple dimensions of vulnerability are concentrated within them. So again, the index jumps quite high in Spain.

00:09:13:18 Mary McCaughey: Okay. And when I talked earlier about where we'd find them in the workplace or in the labour market itself, what sectors are we looking at? Are we looking at particular areas where workers are more at risk of being in vulnerable employment than others?

00:09:31:20 Karel Fric: There is quite a lot of variation across the Member States, so it would be difficult to generalise. But we can generally say that it is private services that have the highest levels of vulnerability. Public services also have elevated levels in some Member States, but manufacturing and construction generally have lower levels of vulnerability.

00:09:44:19 Mary McCaughey: Manufacturing and construction would have lower levels of vulnerability? Okay. That's an interesting one in terms of construction. And is there a link between what we describe as vulnerability of workers and job quality?

00:09:53:05 Karel Fric: Yes, there is. Job quality is clearly linked to vulnerability, but job quality is a broader concept. It covers dimensions such as the physical environment, the social environment or prospects, which are only partially covered by vulnerability. We see that jobs that are considered to be good-quality jobs tend to have lower levels of vulnerability naturally, while those considered less good—or poor-quality jobs—tend to have a higher incidence of vulnerability.

00:10:36:20 Mary McCaughey: Not necessarily a direct overlap, though?

00:10:42:10 Karel Fric: Not necessarily. There might be overlap, but because job quality covers a broader spectrum of dimensions, the overlap might not be complete. We must also remember that, for example, when we look at a sector, we look at an aggregation of different occupations and different countries. So there are a lot of factors that come together. So there is no straightforward link between these two concepts. However, when we talk about working conditions, what you might be getting at is whether there is a link between vulnerability and working conditions. While the link is not entirely straightforward, we can quite safely say that it is the accumulation of different dimensions of vulnerability that leads to consistently worse working conditions. So it would really be workers who are deeply vulnerable—the ones I mentioned before, for example in Spain—that experience the most pronounced disadvantages. For example, poor job prospects, which is quite logical. These workers would have less security, lower career progression and weaker expectations for career advancement. We also see that they have limited access to training. They are less likely to receive employer-provided training or on-the-job training, and that limits their skills development, which reinforces the cycle of vulnerability. We also see that they have lower autonomy and participation. So they have less control over their tasks and less involvement in organisational decision-making.

00:12:08:15 Mary McCaughey: So less autonomy.

00:12:12:05 Karel Fric: Exactly, exactly. And last but not least, it relates to income. I already mentioned that we define income insufficiency as one of the dimensions of vulnerability. So it is not only that these workers have insufficient income, but their income is often less stable and harder to rely on. That also has consequences for their private lives because it makes it more difficult for them to make ends meet and to make plans for the future.

00:12:40:28 Mary McCaughey: Future plans.

00:12:43:10 Karel Fric: Exactly. And it also has impacts on their health. We see elevated levels of anxiety and depression among vulnerable workers.

00:12:54:03 Mary McCaughey: And is that because, if you look at the life of a vulnerable worker, what do we see in the daily existence of a worker who would have this title? Are there particular elements that can be assigned to being in this employment situation?

00:13:16:23 Karel Fric: We didn't really look into that directly, but a lot of it ties back to the definition of vulnerability. You have insecure employment, so there is this existential fear about whether you'll still be employed next year. It is also tied to inadequate income. People might not be able to get a mortgage. And it also ties to a lack of workplace rights.

00:13:37:00 Mary McCaughey: And tell me, what kind of workers are we seeing in these areas? Are we seeing more women? Are we seeing younger people, older people? Are we looking at migrant workers? Is it the same disadvantaged groups that we always see in this category?

00:13:58:25 Karel Fric: There is very much overlap with the groups that you have mentioned. But, interestingly enough, each of those groups has different drivers that bring them into vulnerability. So you are very right to mention women. Women have a higher incidence of vulnerability and, in our research, this is indicated by the fact that they are more exposed to career interruptions and caring responsibilities. Women are still the primary caregivers in most European households. We also see that they are overrepresented in involuntary part-time work, and they are also more concentrated in service sectors with low wages. And, of course, there is the gender pay gap.

00:14:40:27 Mary McCaughey: So it's again about this occupational segregation, the sectoral segregation?

00:14:47:05 Karel Fric: Yeah, exactly. And it often ties back to caring responsibilities. On a positive note, the gap between men and women decreased between 2009 and 2021 in most Member States.

00:15:07:17 Mary McCaughey: And in terms of the other groups that I referenced there, older and younger people, do we see any differences there?

00:15:15:05 Karel Fric: Yes. It is especially younger workers—workers aged 15 to 29—who face a higher incidence of vulnerability. So there are more young people who are affected by vulnerability, but they also face a higher intensity of vulnerability. So it's more dimensions of vulnerability that they would be experiencing. And interestingly, when we look at developments, young workers were more affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The share of younger workers who were vulnerable really disproportionately grew after the onset of the COVID crisis. We also see quite significant differences across Member States when it comes to the prevalence of vulnerability among younger workers. So younger workers are more likely to be vulnerable in countries such as Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands. The reason for that is that they often enter the labour market through flexible and often vulnerable arrangements. But as they gain work experience, they transition to more stable positions and establish themselves in the labour market in a different way. And again, there is quite an interesting finding: there are relatively small gaps between young workers and adult workers in eastern Member States such as Bulgaria or Estonia. One possible explanation for that is positive selection. It's either you take it all or you take nothing. So we have young people who are employed in permanent full-time employment, but we also have young people who remain outside the labour market entirely.

00:16:44:17 Mary McCaughey: Okay. And when we talk about the vulnerabilities that these different groups experience, how does that manifest? Do we have information as to how they experience that vulnerability? In terms of what kind of impact it has on them? Are they perceived to be more anxious? Do they have higher rates of depression or anxiety?

00:17:09:02 Karel Fric: We see that they have higher risks of anxiety and depression. But this is more existential anxiety. Interestingly enough, they experience lower levels of work-related stress compared to, for example, managers, because managers may be worrying about the performance of the team, and so on. So it's a different type of stress that they experience. Interestingly enough, when we looked at physical health, there were only limited effects of vulnerability on that.

00:17:53:11 Mary McCaughey: Okay. And in terms of what's being done to address this, Karel, there are lots of initiatives, of course, that have been taking place across the European Union, not least the most recent Quality Jobs Roadmap and the direction that that will take in terms of assisting in this area. But do we have specific measures which are being used to address vulnerability per se and to support workers in terms of securing better, more secure employment and indeed addressing the income inadequacy aspect?

00:18:19:11 Karel Fric: Yes. So we did a mapping exercise across the Member States. And what we see is that it's quite a difficult exercise for policymakers because they are trying to balance flexibility so that employers, as well as employees, can have employment arrangements that really address their needs. But on the other side, they also need to ensure security in employment relationships.

00:18:43:26 Mary McCaughey: Flexicurity.

00:18:47:05 Karel Fric: Exactly, exactly. Flexicurity. That's the term. And we see, for example, measures that are trying to increase contractual certainty. An important step in this direction is the Directive on Transparent and Predictable Working Conditions, which gives workers the right to have more information about their work—be it the workplace, working time, or the obligation of employers to provide them with advance notice of work assignments. It also places a cap on endless series of probation periods and seeks to prevent the abuse of zero-hours contracts. Zero-hours contracts are quite interesting because they require workers to be available for a certain number of hours, but at the same time do not give them any guarantee of work. While we still can't fully assess the impact of the Directive on the use of zero-hours contracts, we already see that they are considered illegal, either directly or de facto, in some countries, such as France or Austria. The second group of measures is measures that support the transition of employees into more secure jobs. I already mentioned fixed-term employment, and again that's quite an interesting concept because researchers are divided about it. On one side, they say that fixed-term contracts are great because they provide access—or an approach to access—to work for some people and give them an opportunity to gain experience. But on the other hand, firms have less motivation to invest in the training and skills of their temporary staff. They are not certain whether they will get that investment back. So the Fixed-Term Work Directive aims to prevent abuse arising from successive fixed-term employment. At the same time, we also see policies in Member States that provide incentives for employers to recruit workers on open-ended contracts or to convert fixed-term contracts into open-ended contracts. There would be one more set of measures that I would mention, and that is enabling more working hours. Many Member States have introduced provisions that allow workers to request transfers to full-time work. We also see measures that enhance access to childcare and adult care, which is especially important for women. As I mentioned, women are often in part-time work because they cannot combine full-time work with caring responsibilities. The key to this is accessible childcare or adult care so that they can participate in the labour market as much as they desire.

00:21:21:15 Mary McCaughey: There's a lot going on here. And what's interesting is that it's almost a separate dimension entirely that can't map directly onto job quality, which is interesting in itself. And it's something that, as you say, there are several measures in the pipeline and being implemented across the European Union which seek to address this. But if you were looking to engage with a policymaker who could make a difference on this, and you had them for the length of a corridor conversation, what would be the three most pressing issues that you think they should address?

00:21:58:28 Karel Fric: Yeah, I think the main challenge is to address multidimensional vulnerability, right? Because we see that it is this form of vulnerability that really affects working conditions. So, to this end, I would recommend, firstly, tackling structural inequalities—addressing burdens such as care responsibilities, discrimination and skills mismatches. The second would be to balance flexibility and protection, and to prevent the abuse of atypical work. And the third, in my opinion, would be to ensure effective enforcement of rights, be it through strong labour inspections, complaint mechanisms or compliance monitoring.

00:22:51:17 Mary McCaughey: Okay. Well, that was very quick: three recommendations from Karel. Thank you, Karel. Very succinct and to the point. Certainly, addressing structural inequalities is much bigger than just vulnerable workers, and of course that speaks to the Gender Equality Strategy and other efforts aimed at addressing structural inequalities in the workplace. And the flexicurity issue—flexibility and social protection—is an ongoing debate. Then, of course, effective enforcement plays a significant role. I think you've highlighted today, Karel, that there is a lot in this, and we may possibly come back to it at a later stage to see how things are developing. Hopefully, the statistics that you highlighted at the beginning of the podcast will continue to diminish over the coming years. But if not, we will have you back in to discuss why, and what more can be done to address them. So thank you very much for joining us today, Karel.

00:23:42:24 Karel Fric: Thank you very much, Mary. And also thank you to the other authors of the report: Dragoș Adăscăliței, Guillermo Orfao and Tina Weber.

00:23:53:10 Mary McCaughey: Indeed. Well, that's all from this edition of Eurofound Talks, where we talked about vulnerable workers. You can hear more on this and other topics, including job quality, the European Working Conditions Survey, gender equality, and dealing with some of the challenges and opportunities presented by changing patterns of work, workplaces and employment. All of this is available on our website. You can find Eurofound Talks podcasts wherever you access your podcasts, either on Spotify or indeed on the Eurofound website itself. Please do follow us on social media and subscribe to our various events and newsletters. We look forward to hearing from you. And until next time, when Eurofound Talks to You.