Significant sectoral variations in levels of shift work
Published: 26 August 2007
The National Institute of Statistics (Institutul Naţional de Statistică, INS [1]) conducts a household labour force survey (/Ancheta forţei de muncă în gospodării/, AMIGO) on a quarterly basis entitled /Labour force in Romania: Employment and unemployment/ (/Forţa de muncă în România. Ocupare şi şomaj/). Since 2002, the survey questionnaire has been redesigned to conform to Eurostat [2] requirements for data sources. The face-to-face interview survey sample includes more than 28,000 households and the margin of error is 3%. The extended annual data are based on the mathematical average of the quarterly data.[1] http://www.insse.ro/[2] http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat
Household labour force survey data indicate that, in 2005, 24.1% of employees in Romania worked in shifts, compared with 26.1% in 2002. Men account for 54% of the total; however, large gender gaps arise in certain economic sectors. In terms of location, more than 75% of shift work is carried out in urban areas. The sectors where shift work is most prevalent are the extraction industry, hotels and restaurants, and health and social work.
About the survey
The National Institute of Statistics (Institutul Naţional de Statistică, INS) conducts a household labour force survey (Ancheta forţei de muncă în gospodării, AMIGO) on a quarterly basis entitled Labour force in Romania: Employment and unemployment (Forţa de muncă în România. Ocupare şi şomaj). Since 2002, the survey questionnaire has been redesigned to conform to Eurostat requirements for data sources. The face-to-face interview survey sample includes more than 28,000 households and the margin of error is 3%. The extended annual data are based on the mathematical average of the quarterly data.
Incidence of shift work
In 2005, more than 1.42 million employees performed shift work in Romania, compared with over 1.48 million employees in 2002, according to the AMIGO data. The total for 2005 represents 24.1% of all employees in Romania, while the 2002 figure represented 26.1%.
Of the total number of people working in shifts, men accounted for 54% in 2005 and 54.4% in 2002. People working in shifts mostly live in urban areas: in 2005, 75.6% of employees doing shift work lived in towns and cities, up from 72.7% in 2002. The remaining 24.4% of the workforce lived in rural areas in 2005 (as against 27.3% in 2002) (see Table 1).
| 2002 | 2005 | |
|---|---|---|
| Total (in 000s), of which: | 1,486.9 | 1,425.0 |
| male | 54.4% | 54.0% |
| female | 45.6% | 46.0% |
| urban | 72.7% | 75.6% |
| rural | 27.3% | 24.4% |
Source: AMIGO, INS, Bucharest, 2003 and 2006
Sectoral variations
While the total number of employees working in shifts declined in 2005 compared with 2002, in some sectors more people took on shift work – in the wholesale and retail trade, hotels and restaurants, real estate, and healthcare. The numbers remained practically the same in electricity, gas and water supply, and in construction, while they declined in manufacturing, the extractive industries, education, agriculture, public administration and transport (Table 2).
| 2002 | 2005 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number (in 000s) | % of total employees | Number (in 000s) | % of total employees | |
| Extraction industry | 77.2 | 53.9 | 57.4 | 48.5 |
| Hotels and restaurants | 45.6 | 44.5 | 65.1 | 46.6 |
| Health and social work | 140.0 | 40.9 | 149.0 | 43.2 |
| Transport, storage and communication | 143.2 | 34.4 | 139.7 | 33.6 |
| Manufacturing | 661.2 | 34.7 | 551.2 | 29.0 |
| Electricity, gas and water supply | 53.4 | 27.5 | 53.8 | 28.3 |
| National economy | 1,486.9 | 26.1 | 1,425.0 | 24.1 |
| Real estate, renting and business activities | 29.1 | 23.8 | 50.7 | 23.7 |
| Wholesale and retail trade | 145.7 | 20.5 | 185.2 | 23.3 |
| Public administration and defence | 86.0 | 15.8 | 79.6 | 15.3 |
| Other economic activities | 38.2 | 15.3 | 38.5 | 13.4 |
| Agriculture, hunting and forestry | 20.2 | 10.3 | 14.5 | 8.3 |
| Education | 28.7 | 7.0 | 21.8 | 5.3 |
| Construction | 18.4 | 5.1 | 18.5 | 4.6 |
Source: INS, 2003 and 2006
Over-representation of sexes in certain sectors
In 2005, in the national economy, women represented on average 46% of the total number of shiftworkers. However, in the hotels and restaurants sector, they accounted for 98.9%, while they represented 93.7% in wholesale and retail trade, and 87.4% in health and social work (Table 3).
| 2002 | 2005 | |
|---|---|---|
| Hotels and restaurants | 69.3 | 98.9 |
| Wholesale and retail trade | 73.7 | 93.7 |
| Health and social work | 82.1 | 87.4 |
| All sectors | 46.0 | 44.0 |
| Education | 55.0 | 41.8 |
| Manufacturing | 48.1 | 40.1 |
| Transport, storage and communication | 18.3 | 17.8 |
| Electricity, gas and water supply | 13.6 | 13.7 |
| Public administration and defence | 9.5 | 8.8 |
Source: INS, 2003 and 2006
Conversely, a lower proportion of women do shift work in the following sectors: public administration and defence (8.8%); electricity, gas and water supply (13.7%); and transport, storage and communication (17.8%). Meanwhile, in agriculture and the extractive industries, virtually no women work in shifts.
Further information
The survey is only available in Romanian and as a printed edition. More information is available on the high incidence of non-standard working hours in Romania (RO0704049I).
Luminiţa Chivu, Institute of National Economy
Eurofound recommends citing this publication in the following way.
Eurofound (2007), Significant sectoral variations in levels of shift work, article.
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