Publications

The platform economy is one of those moving targets, which, despite receiving increasing media and policy attention, has proven difficult to regulate. Given the heterogeneity of employment relationships, business models, types of platform work and cross-border issues, this is not surprising. Yet, in recent years, an increasing number of initiatives and court rulings across EU Member States have sought to address the employment rights and working conditions of platform workers.

De retailbankingsector biedt een productief kader voor het bestuderen van de gevolgen van digitalisering voor het werk en de werkgelegenheid. Financiële diensten worden steeds vaker online aangeboden, zonder tussenkomst van klantgerichte instellingen. Veel banken in de sector hebben sinds de wereldwijde financiële crisis een hele reeks herstructureringen ondergaan, en het is een van de weinige dienstensectoren met stagnerende of afnemende werkgelegenheid.

Although the worldwide pandemic situation had already disrupted supply chains and triggered increases in energy and food prices in 2021, the situation deteriorated in 2022 with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Governments throughout the EU had already started to intervene with policy measures in a bid to cushion the impact of rising fuel and energy prices on citizens, but the situation demanded further responses. This article summarises these first policy responses, as reported in Eurofound’s EU PolicyWatch database, up to the end of May 2022.

As the war in Ukraine has intensified, the cost of food, raw materials and energy prices, already high due to the COVID-19 pandemic, has continued to rise substantially. Ahead of coordinated action at EU level, as agreed by EU energy ministers on 9 September 2022, governments across the EU have started to implement policies to support companies affected by the rising prices, and those with commercial ties to Ukraine, Russia or Belarus. This article summarises these first policy responses, as reported in Eurofound’s EU PolicyWatch database, up to 31 May 2022.

In collecting information on essential services, the European Commission requested Eurofound to provide input on certain aspects of existing and planned measures in the Member States to improve access to essential services in reference to Principle 20 of the European Pillar of Social Rights. For this exercise, the scope was on energy services, public transport, and digital communications, and the focus on people at risk of poverty or social exclusion (in most cases in practice, people on low incomes).

This study provides information allowing for an assessment of the representativeness of the actors involved in the European sectoral social dialogue committee for the gas sector. Their relative representativeness legitimises their right to be consulted, their role and effective participation in the European sectoral social dialogue and their capacity to negotiate agreements.

In dit verslag worden de wetgeving en de collectieve onderhandelingen over telewerk in de 27 lidstaten en Noorwegen in kaart gebracht en onder de loep genomen. Onder andere wordt ingegaan op de belangrijkste verschillen en overeenkomsten tussen de landen wat betreft de wetgeving inzake telewerk en recente wetswijzigingen op dat gebied. Ook wordt de huidige situatie met betrekking tot collectieve onderhandelingen over telewerk onderzocht.

In dit verslag wordt een analyse gemaakt van recente ontwikkelingen en nieuwe partijken wat betreft procedures en resultaten van collectieve onderhandelingen, met name in de privésector. Er komen cao-stelsels uit tien EU-lidstaten aan bod en de analyse is gebaseerd op gevallen die aan de orde kwamen in gesprekken met prominente nationale betrokkenen en onderhandelingspartijen. Daarnaast wordt er gekeken naar de gevolgen van de COVID-19-pandemie en de daaruit voortvloeiende economische en maatschappelijke crisis voor de dynamiek van collectieve onderhandelingen en cao’s.

Rising energy prices are putting more people under increased financial pressure and at greater risk of energy poverty. In this data story, we take a closer look at the data from the fifth round of the Living, working and COVID-19 e-survey to explore the extent of the issue and the threat of energy poverty.

Trust in national institutions has declined across the EU over the past two years. Driven by increasingly difficult economic circumstances and unreliable news sources, even people who previously expressed higher trust levels – such as those in financially secure positions – have become less trusting.