One in 11 EU employees forced to accept temporary or part-time employment

Non-standard employment – meaning temporary (or fixed-term) and part-time work – is usually discussed in terms of flexibility: shorter hours for parents or fixed-term contracts that give young people a first step into work. While some of it is exactly that, a sizeable part is accepted by workers because alternatives are not available. For these workers, flexibility is not something they chose but an impediment; they are in involuntary non-standard employment. 

A forthcoming Eurofound report measures this group of employees over almost two decades. Using EU Labour Force Survey microdata for 2006 to 2024, it analyses employees who hold a temporary contract because they could not find a permanent one, who work part time because they could not find a full-time job, or who have a part-time temporary job because they could not find full-time permanent employment.  

In 2024, 8.8% of employees in the EU were in this position, down from 11.2% in 2006. The rate of involuntary non-standard employment peaked at 12.7% in 2015 as national labour markets were still experiencing the effects of the Great Recession. From 2015, the rate fell steadily, interrupted only briefly by the pandemic, as labour markets tightened and temporary employment contracted. The improvement has been largest for workers in lower-skilled occupations, and this represents a genuinely lower risk of involuntary non-standard work in the labour market, not simply a compositional effect of the workforce becoming older or better educated. 

Still, about half of all temporary employees in the EU are on a fixed-term contract because they could not find a permanent one. That proportion has come down from 63% in 2015, but for most of those in it, temporary work is second-best and not a choice. Involuntary temporary contracts account for almost two-thirds of all involuntary non-standard employment. Involuntary part-time work accounts for most of the rest, mainly among employees who hold permanent contracts. 

The differences between Member States are large. The involuntary non-standard employment rate is below 2% in Lithuania and Romania and above 17% in Spain and 18% in Italy. Because of the size of their labour markets, Italy and Spain together account for more than 40% of all employees in the EU in involuntary non-standard employment.  

Rates fell in 19 Member States between 2006 and 2024 and rose in 8. The largest increases were in Italy, up more than 6 percentage points, and Greece, up 3.5. Italy and Spain also stand out for a specific pattern: a large group of underemployed employees with permanent contracts who work part time because they cannot get full-time hours.  

As the overall rate has fallen, involuntary non-standard employment has become more concentrated in specific sectors. These include hospitality, administrative support services and work in private households, which have long had high rates. Over the past decade, health, education and other non-market services have become more associated with it: an employee working in these sectors in 2024 was twice as likely to be in involuntary non-standard employment than in 2014. 

The profile of those affected is consistent across countries. Women make up 59% of the group, just over half are under 40, and two-thirds have at most upper secondary education. These differences persist after accounting for other characteristics.  

The gender gap in involuntary non-standard employment is almost entirely driven by part-time employment. In temporary work, men and women are affected to a similar extent, but in part-time work, women are much more likely than men to be working shorter hours than they want. The gender gap narrowed between 2014 and 2024, but it did not close. 

There is good reason to think the figures understate the problem for women. The survey classifies part-time work as voluntary if the stated reason is care responsibilities or other family reasons. Where childcare is unavailable or unaffordable, parental leave is short or care is still assumed to be women’s work due to cultural norms, that is not a free choice. The figures set out above should therefore be read as a lower bound, and the gap between the measured and the true rate of involuntary non-standard employment is likely to be widest for women with care responsibilities.

The two largest declines in the rate of involuntary non-standard employment in the EU point to the role of labour market policy. Poland’s rate fell from almost 22% in 2006 to 7% in 2024, by far the largest reduction in the EU. Much of it followed changes to the labour code in 2016 that restricted the use of temporary contracts, together with higher social security contributions on civil-law contracts, which had served as a cheaper alternative to standard employment. In Spain, the rate stayed close to 28% for much of the 2010s before falling to 17%. The sharpest fall came after the 2021 labour reform, which limited the circumstances in which fixed-term contracts can be used and extended the use of the fijo discontinuo, a permanent contract for seasonal work. 

The overall picture is one of uneven progress. Involuntary non-standard employment is lower than it was a decade ago, and the improvement reflects better conditions for the workers with the least bargaining power. But it remains high in southern Europe, it is increasingly concentrated in a handful of service sectors, and it continues to be mostly women and young people in this situation.