At your service: Working conditions of interactive service workers
Published: 15 July 2020
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 be demanding work as it routinely places emotional demands on these workers and can have an impact on their well-being. This policy brief examines the working conditions of people employed in
interactive service work and investigates their job quality compared to the average employee. It focuses on the multiple emotional demands placed on them and assesses to what extent specific job resources (such as social support or good management quality) can help to prevent negative impacts of such demands. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, a special focus is put on the subgroup of workers in the health sector.
Overall, 41% of EU employees work in direct contact with clients, customers, users, patients or other service recipients. One-fifth of these are health workers on the frontline of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Interactive service work is female-dominated: 61% are women. The subgroup of frontline health workers is even more gender-imbalanced, comprising 85% women.
Compared to other workers, interactive service workers (ISWs) have more challenges with respect to working time – atypical hours, inflexible time arrangements and longer hours. They also have higher work intensity – meaning, for instance, that they have tight deadlines and their pace of work is more often determined by the demands of clients and customers. Their social environment is poorer, too, attributable in part to their contact with clients and customers, which exposes them to more adverse social behaviour.
The data show that 22% of all ISWs and 32% of frontline health ISWs are exposed to high emotional demands – such as having to hide their feelings – compared to 14% of EU employees overall.
Job resources mitigate the negative consequences of emotional labour. High-quality management, for instance, is associated with better well-being.
This section provides information on the data contained in this publication.
Tables
Table 1: Main occupations of ISWs, EU27 and the UK, 2015
Table 2: Occupational breakdown of ISWs by gender, EU27 and the UK, 2015
Table 3: Working life outcomes by type of employee, EU27 and the UK, 2015
Graphs
Figure 1: Occupational classification of ISWs and non-ISWs (%), EU27 and the UK, 2015
Figure 2: Distribution of ISWs by income quintiles (%), EU27 and the UK, 2015
Figure 3: Job quality of ISWs and non-ISWs compared across seven dimensions
Figure 4: Job quality of off-site and on-site ISWs compared across seven dimensions
Figure 5: Job quality profiles of male and female ISWs compared across seven dimensions
Figure 6: Emotional demands on ISWs and extent of those demands (%), EU27 and the UK, 2015
Figure 7: Experience of high emotional demands (%), by type of employee, EU27 and the UK, 2015
Figure 8: Prevalence of emotional demands in the most exposed occupations (%), EU27 and the UK, 2015
Figure 9: Effect of work on health (%), by ISW category, EU and the UK, 2015
Figure 10: Impact of social support on health outcomes of ISWs with high emotional demands (%), EU27 and the UK, 2015
Figure 11: Impact of autonomy on health outcomes of ISWs with high emotional demands (%), EU27 and UK
Figure 12: Impact of management quality on health outcomes of ISWs with high emotional demands (%), EU27 and the UK
Eurofound recommends citing this publication in the following way.
Eurofound (2020), At your service: Working conditions of interactive service workers, European Working Conditions Survey 2015 series, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg.
