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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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Job insecurity undermines democracy

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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Societal implications of labour market instability

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

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

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)

Temporary agency work in the European Union

This report examines the main trends in temporary agency work and the problems and challenges it poses for the different Member States and the EU as a whole. It puts the spotlight on the working conditions of temporary agency workers, and the specific features of such work that might help explain

26 March 2002
Publication
Research report
Employment and labour markets
Non-standard employment
Working conditions
Working conditions and sustainable work

Self-employment: Choice or necessity?

During the summer of 1998 more than 30,000 persons aged between 16 to 64 years from 16 European countries were interviewed about their current employment status, their working conditions and their preferences. This leaflet summarises the main findings of the survey in relation to self-employment and

22 June 2000
Publication
Report summary
Employment status
Non-standard employment
Working conditions
Working conditions and sustainable work

Precarious employment and health-related outcomes in the European Union

This publication focuses on the impact of employment status on workers' health. It presents and analyses data on the 15 Member States of the European Union, collected from the Foundation's Second European Survey on Working Conditions, Eurostat, and OECD. It also offers recommendations on how to

23 March 2000
Publication
Research report
Health and well-being at work
Non-standard employment
Working conditions
Employment and labour markets
Working conditions and sustainable work

Precarious employment and working conditions in Europe

Precarious employment not only covers employees with fixed term and temporary contracts (and some categories of self-employed workers) but also workers with low incomes and/or short working hours. This publication describes the extent, consequences and reasons for precarious employment in order to

17 February 1999
Publication
Research report
Non-standard employment
Working time
Working poor
Working conditions
Employment and labour markets
Working conditions and sustainable work

Working conditions of the self-employed in the European Union (Summary)

This summary is based on an analysis of findings of the second European survey on working conditions conducted in 1996. The survey findings show that stress and musculo-skeletal disorders are the main health risks at work and highlights the need for a holistic and multi-disciplinary approach to the

16 March 1998
Publication
Report summary
Health and well-being at work
Non-standard employment
Psychosocial risks
Working conditions
Employment and labour markets
Working conditions and sustainable work
Online resources results (249)

New law regulates temporary agency work

In October 2001, the Greek parliament passed a new law on employment services, which includes provisions regulating temporary agency work and the operation of temporary employment agencies. The new legislation for the first time lays down specific rules on the establishment, operation and

28 November 2001
Article
Labour law
Non-standard employment
Social partners
Labour and social regulation

Job losses and new rules on employment conditions in temporary work agencies

During October 2001, the Dutch temporary agency work market (Europe's largest) started to suffer as the economy entered difficulties, with agencies experiencing falls in profits and announcing job cuts. Meanwhile, the social partners within the Labour Foundation agreed a set of recommendations to

26 November 2001
Article
Non-standard employment
Social partners
Industrial relations
Industrial relations and social dialogue

Unemployment begins to increase

Unemployment in France has begun to rise again since April 2001 ending, at least temporarily, a period of robust employment performance. The government has responded by launching various new employment-support initiatives. The extent of this reversal of the trend of the previous four years will

1 November 2001
Article
Unemployment
Non-standard employment
Working time
Employment and labour markets

Joint declaration agreed on temporary agency work

A joint declaration on temporary agency work [1] was signed on 8 October 2001 by Euro-CIETT- the European committee of the International Confederation of Temporary Work Businesses- and Uni-Europa- the European regional organisation of Union Network International (UNI), the international organisation

31 October 2001
Article
Non-standard employment
Labour and social regulation
Social dialogue
Labour law
Social partners
Employment and labour markets
Industrial relations and social dialogue

New regulations increase part-time work among older employees

Since 2000, new statutory provisions on part-time work for older employees (Altersteilzeit) have been in operation in Austria (TN0109184S [1]). These provisions were enacted in connection with a pension reform (AT0008228F [2]) which increased the age at which an early retirement pensions can be

29 October 2001
Article
Labour law
Ageing workforce
Non-standard employment
Working time
Employment and labour markets
Labour and social regulation

Precarious employment and gender inequality

'Precarious' employment is a major issue in Spain, which has the highest levels of temporary employment in Europe, at around a third of all employment in 2001. While both men and women are affected by temporary employment, it is women who experience it most. This feature reviews recent research into

25 October 2001
Article
Employment and labour markets
Non-standard employment
Gender equality

Fixed-term employment increases significantly

On 3 September 2001, the Swedish Trade Union Confederation (Landsorganisationen, LO) released a report on 'employment forms and working time' in Sweden since 1990 (Anställningsformer och arbetstider 2001 [1]). The report is based on the Swedish Labour Force Surveys (Arbetskraftsundersökningarna, AKU

10 October 2001
Article
Non-standard employment
Employment and labour markets

Redundancy legislation to be toughened

In June 2001, France's national assembly gave a second reading to the government's "social modernisation" bill, whose wide-ranging provisions include measures on redundancies. In a context of increasing disquiet about a wave of large-scale job losses, the latest version of the bill contains much

27 July 2001
Article
Labour and social regulation
Non-standard employment
Skills and training
Employment and labour markets

Childminders to become employees

In early June 2001, some 3,000 Belgian childminders (the great majority of them women, but a few men too) held a protest march in Brussels to press for a proper social security status. More than a year before, the federal government had promised this group - who currently have no social security

27 July 2001
Article
Social protection
Minimum wage
Non-standard employment
Working conditions
Social policies
Working conditions and sustainable work

Construction sector talks deadlocked over temporary agency work

In June 2001, negotiations in the Belgian construction sector over a new two-year collective agreement for 160,000 blue-collar workers, in line with the 2001-2 national intersectoral agreement, are deadlocked. The stumbling block is the question of lifting the current ban on temporary agency work in

27 June 2001
Article
Non-standard employment
Blogs results (7)
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New forms of employment in Europe – How new is new?

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
Irene Mandl
Blog
Platform work
Non-standard employment
Working conditions
New forms of employment
Employment relationship
Teleworking
Employment and labour markets
Working conditions and sustainable work
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Economic downturns expose the vulnerability of a growing number of precarious workers

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
Tina Weber
Blog
COVID-19
Non-standard employment
Employment status
Labour and social regulation
Employment and labour markets
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ICT-enabled flexible working – All plain sailing?

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
Oscar Vargas Llave
Blog
Non-standard employment
Working conditions
New forms of employment
Inclusive labour markets
Digitalisation
Employment and labour markets
Anticipating and managing the impact of change
Working conditions and sustainable work
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Stamping out fraud in hiring practices across Europe

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
Isabella Biletta
Blog
Non-standard employment
Posted workers
Working conditions and sustainable work
Employment relationship
Fraudulent work
The many faces of self-employment In Europe

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
Mathijn Wilkens
Blog
Inequality
Job creation
Non-standard employment
Working conditions and sustainable work
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Employment shifts in Europe during the recovery: three little noticed trends

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
John Hurley
Blog
Employment structure
Gender equality
Job creation
Employment and labour markets
Non-standard employment
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The rise of temporary contracts in Europe

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
Eurofound
Blog
Employment and labour markets
Non-standard employment
Pay and income
Working conditions and sustainable work
Working poor

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