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Non-standard employment

Non-standard employment is an umbrella term for different employment arrangements that deviate from standard employment. They include temporary employment; part-time and on-call work; temporary agency work and other multiparty employment relationships; as well as disguised employment and dependent self-employment. The most relevant of possible future developments of non-standard work, whatever their contractual form, are related to digitalisation.

Topic

Recent updates

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Workers on non-permanent contracts and workers with no formal contract are less satisfied with the functioning of democracy in their country, as are workers experiencing job insecurity. They are less...

1 September 2023
Corporate news
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This report investigates the social groups whose attachment to the labour market may be unstable and who are most likely to have non-standard working arrangements, and the implications of such...

29 August 2023
Publication
Research report

Eurofound expert(s)

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Carlos Vacas Soriano is a research manager in the Employment unit at Eurofound. He works on topics related to wage and income inequalities, minimum wages, low pay, job quality...

Research manager,
Employment research unit
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Dragoș Adăscăliței is a research officer in the Employment unit at Eurofound. His current research focuses on topics related to the future of work, including the impact of...

Research officer,
Employment research unit
Publications results (55)

Ensuring greater social protection for self-employed people has been the subject of much policy debate in recent years. In 2019, the Council of the European Union adopted a recommendation on access to social protection for workers and the self-employed. Sudden reductions in income during the COVID-1

30 January 2024

This report investigates the social groups whose attachment to the labour market may be unstable and who are most likely to have non-standard working arrangements, and the implications of such arrangements, and job insecurity, for workers’ well-being, social exclusion, trust, perception of fairness

29 August 2023

Disclaimer - Please note that this report was updated with revised data (specifically for Bulgaria) on 23 March 2021.This report sets out to assess the initial impact of the COVID-19 crisis on employment in Europe (up to Q2 2020), including its effects across sectors and on different categories of

11 March 2021

Although standard employment (generally full-time and permanent) remains the dominant employment type across the EU, European labour markets are increasingly characterised by a variety of different forms. These new forms of employment involve new formal employment relationships or work patterns

15 December 2020

Megatrends, such as digitalisation, globalisation, demographic change and climate change, are transforming the world of work, with knock-on effects for working conditions and job quality. Against this background, this report examines working conditions and job quality from a sectoral perspective

05 November 2020

What have been the major trends and policy developments regarding the flexibilisation of employment in recent years? Eurofound’s work programme for 2017–2020 set out to document and capture these changes in the world of work. This flagship publication provides an overview of developments in Europe

16 April 2020

Casual work, both intermittent and on-call, contributes to labour market flexibility and is therefore increasingly used across Europe. In some countries, practices go beyond the use of casual employment contracts to include other types of contracts and forms of self-employment.

20 December 2019

This report sets out to describe what labour market segmentation is and why it is problematic for the labour market and society, as well as disadvantaged groups. It takes a broad view of the term to examine the situation that arises when the divergence in working conditions between different groups

02 December 2019

Annual review of working life 2017 is part of a series of annual reviews published by Eurofound and provides an overview of the latest developments in industrial relations and working conditions across the EU and Norway. The annual review collates information based on reports from Eurofound’s

22 October 2018

Platform work is a form of employment that uses an online platform to match the supply of and demand for paid labour. In Europe, platform work is still small in scale but is rapidly developing. The types of work offered through platforms are ever-increasing, as are the challenges for existing

24 September 2018

Online resources results (249)

Spain: Recent growth in entrepreneurial activity

Experts acknowledge the success of Spanish measures to encourage self-employment, but argue that many unemployed people have decided to set up their own businesses only because they cannot find a job, and that necessity-driven new businesses have lower survival rates. They say entrepreneurship

Government consults on regulating ‘zero hours’ contracts

So-called ‘zero hours’ employment contracts in the United Kingdom (*UK1308029I* [1]) allow employers to take workers on without guaranteeing any specific amount of work, [1] www.eurofound.europa.eu/ef/observatories/eurwork/articles/industrial-relations-undefined-working-conditions/zero-hours

Debate continues over use of locum doctors

For over a decade, there has been a shortage of doctors throughout Sweden, particularly in the north of the country. According to a Swedish Medical Association survey of staffing needs in primary care (in Swedish, 958KB PDF) [1], an increase of 30% in the current number of doctors, or an extra 1,400

New rules on hiring casual labour

/In Norway, new rules to protect hired labourers have been introduced. Both trade unions and the Labour Inspection Authority have been given greater powers to ensure that the hiring of labour complies with the law. Employer organisations are highly critical of the changes made to the legal framework

Trade unions in tussle over agency work directive

The Trades Union Congress (TUC [1]) has lodged a complaint with the European Commission, arguing that the UK government has failed to properly implement Directive 2008/104/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of November 2008 on temporary agency work (64KB PDF) [2]. The TUC presented

Improved rights for part-time workers

The Norwegian Parliament has strengthened the rights of employees who involuntarily work part time because they cannot find a full-time job. The legislation, which makes it easier for part-time workers to increase their working hours, will come into force on 1 January 2014.


Blogs results (7)
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Standard employment is not simply being replaced by non-standard work; employment is becoming more diverse, and policy must accordingly become more tailored. The last decade has seen much public and policy debate on the future of work. Standard employment – permanent, full-time and subject to labour

15 December 2020
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Up to the start of 2020, recent EU economic and labour market trends were often discussed in terms of the periods before and after the Great Recession. It now appears likely that, in the short- to medium-term, the repercussions of that economic crisis will be dwarfed by the unfolding impact of the

21 April 2020
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Imagine you’re at work and something happens: you have to leave to visit a client, you have to go home to let in the plumber, or you have to collect the kids from school as the football training has just been cancelled. If you’re lucky, your employer gives you the flexibility to do this. If you’re

14 May 2019
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Research Manager Isabella Biletta looks at fraudulent practices in the contracting of work. Such practices involve the abuse of legitimate employment relationships with the aim of sidestepping labour and social regulations and with the effect of undermining workers’ rights and fair competition in

1 June 2018
The many faces of self-employment In Europe

While the Europe 2020 strategy actively promotes entrepreneurial self-employment as a means to create good jobs, policy makers at national and EU level are actively looking at better social protection for self-employed workers. Understanding this paradox requires looking beyond the ‘self-employed’

26 October 2017
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The EU has finally recovered all the net employment losses sustained since the global financial crisis. It has been a long and painful process. But there is at last growing evidence of positive momentum in EU labour markets, if not quite ‘animal spirits’. Many of those member states most affected by

26 July 2017
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More than one in 10 employees in the EU are employed on temporary contracts, but a majority of them would prefer a permanent contract. Temporary contracts help employers to manage their labour demand, but there are downsides for employees, such as job insecurity and lower pay.

19 February 2016

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