A new trade union aims to improve the pay, employment rights and access to social security benefits of homeworkers, most of whom are women. The driving force behind its creation is the Association of Homeworkers in Bulgaria, a non-governmental organisation that strives to address the problems and challenges faced by this vulnerable group.
In 2014, Portugal's Constitutional Court ruled that a number of the coalition government's austerity measures were unconstitutional. The government’s response was a new austerity package that extended the possibility of wage cuts to 2018 and included permanent cuts to public pensions. The Constitutional Court accepted only the nominal wage cuts for 2014 and 2015.
This article presents some of the key developments and research findings on EU level developments in industrial relations and working conditions during the last quarter of 2014. The European Commission's priorities for 2015, the economic outlook for Europe, and issues around working time are the main focus of this report.
Slovenia's Youth Guarantee strategy for 2014–2015 was approved by the government in January 2014. It sets out a range of measures that are designed to improve the transition from education to employment, to get young unemployed people into vocational training or paid work more quickly, and to reduce unemployment among the young.
The third wave of Eurofound’s European Company Survey was carried out in 2013. It surveyed management representatives in over 24,000 establishments; where available, employee representatives were also interviewed – in 6,800 of these establishments.
The Competency Barometer is a survey of skills demand among the member companies of Norway’s largest employer organisation, the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (NHO). The results are derived from the answers of approximately 5,300 companies, representing different company sizes, sectors, and industries. In a working paper published by the research institute NIFU, the findings are analysed and summarised. Overall, the paper found that a majority of firms have an unmet demand for skills.
A number of significant developments took place in 2014 in industrial relations involving Italy’s main metalworking trade unions at car manufacturer Fiat.
In January 2012, car manufacturer Fiat withdrew from the employers’ organisation Confindustria. In doing so, it ceased to be covered by collective bargaining agreements signed by the employers’ group.
A new alliance for vocational and further training has been launched in Germany. The German Confederation of Trade Unions (DGB) announced its creation on 12 December 2014.
The new alliance breaks with events in the past decade during which employers, ministries, other government institutions and the Federal Employment Agency (BA) had cooperated in the Pact on Apprenticeship, while DGB opposed to the pact and did not participate.
The issue of ‘locked-in’ workers – those who find it difficult to find another job with a new employer – has been examined in a study.
Patterns among employees in the Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish labour markets were examined.
Workers are defined as locked-in if they have considerable difficulty in finding an equally good job as the current one with other employer. Empirically, the concept is measured by means of the employees’ own assessment of their labour market prospects.
Stress at work is still the biggest health and safety concern according to research by the Trades Union Congress (TUC).
The TUC published its biennial survey of union health and safety representatives in November 2014.The survey is designed to help the TUC and its affiliated unions with ongoing safety campaigning and organisation.
Some of the key findings of the survey are as follows.
The European Restructuring Monitor (ERM) has reported on the employment impact of large-scale business restructuring since 2002. This publication series include the ERM reports, as well as blogs, articles and working papers on restructuring-related events in the EU27 and Norway.
Eurofound’s European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) paints a wide-ranging picture of Europe at work across countries, occupations, sectors and age groups. This series consists of findings from the European Working Conditions Telephone Survey (EWCTS) 2021, an extraordinary edition conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey was first carried out in 1990.
This publication series gathers all overview reports on developments in working life, annual reviews in industrial relations and working conditions produced by Eurofound on the basis of national contributions from the Network of Eurofound Correspondents (NEC). Since 1997, these reports have provided overviews of the latest developments in industrial relations and working conditions across the EU and Norway. The series may include recent ad hoc articles written by members of the NEC.
Eurofound’s work on COVID-19 examines the far-reaching socioeconomic implications of the pandemic across Europe as they continue to impact living and working conditions. A key element of the research is the e-survey, launched in April 2020, with five rounds completed at different stages during 2020, 2021 and 2022. This is complemented by the inclusion of research into the ongoing effects of the pandemic in much of Eurofound’s other areas of work.
Eurofound's representativeness studies are designed to allow the European Commission to identify the ‘management and labour’ whom it must consult under article 154 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). This series consists of studies of the representativeness of employer and worker organisations in various sectors.
This series reports on developments in minimum wage rates across the EU, including how they are set and how they have developed over time in nominal and real terms. The series explores where there are statutory minimum wages or collectively agreed minimum wages in the Member States, as well as minimum wage coverage rates by gender.
The European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) launched in 1990 and is carried out every five years, with the latest edition in 2015. It provides an overview of trends in working conditions and quality of employment for the last 30 years. It covers issues such as employment status, working time duration and organisation, work organisation, learning and training, physical and psychosocial risk factors, health and safety, work–life balance, worker participation, earnings and financial security, work and health, and most recently also the future of work.
Eurofound’s Flagship report series 'Challenges and prospects in the EU' comprise research reports that contain the key results of multiannual research activities and incorporate findings from different related research projects. Flagship reports are the major output of each of Eurofound’s strategic areas of intervention and have as their objective to contribute to current policy debates.
Eurofound’s European Company Survey (ECS) maps and analyses company policies and practices which can have an impact on smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, as well as the development of social dialogue in companies. This series consists of outputs from the ECS 2019, the fourth edition of the survey. The survey was first carried out in 2004–2005 as the European Survey on Working Time and Work-Life Balance.
This series reports on and updates latest information on the involvement of national social partners in policymaking. The series analyses the involvement of national social partners in the implementation of policy reforms within the framework of social dialogue practices, including their involvement in elaborating the National Reform Programmes (NRPs).
Human resources contribute to the success of an organisation though their skills. According to the ability, motivation, opportunity (AMO) model, employee contributions to organisational performance depend on their skills, their motivation to draw on their skills, and the opportunities to do so. Organisations can adopt managerial approaches cultivating ability (A) by facilitating learning, creating opportunity (O) by providing employees with autonomy, and encouraging motivation (M) by leveraging monetary and non-monetary motivational drivers.
This paper provides an analytical summary of state of the art academic and policy literature on the impact of climate change and policies to manage transitions to a carbon neutral economy on employment, working conditions, social dialogue and living conditions. It maps the key empirical findings around the impact of climate change and the green transitions on jobs, sectors, regions and countries in Europe, identifying the opportunities and risks that climate change policies bring to European labour markets.
As part of its response to Russia’s war on Ukraine, the EU swiftly activated its Temporary Protection Directive for those fleeing the conflict in Ukraine – enabling displaced persons to settle in the EU and have access to the labour market and basic public services. This policy brief highlights the main barriers encountered by these refugees (over 5 million people to date) when seeking a job and provides suggestions on how to facilitate their integration.
With the expansion of telework and different forms of hybrid work as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important for policymakers to consider both the opportunities and the negative consequences that may result. This report will explore potential scenarios for such work. In doing so, it will identify trends and drivers, and predict how they might interact to create particular outcomes and how they are likely to affect workers and businesses. Policy pointers will outline what could be done to facilitate desirable outcomes and to avoid undesirable ones.
Living and working in Europe, Eurofound’s 2022 yearbook, provides a snapshot of the latest developments in the work and lives of Europeans as explored in the Agency’s research activities over the course of 2022. Eurofound’s research on working and living conditions in Europe provides a bedrock of evidence for input into social policymaking and achieving the Agency’s vision ‘to be Europe’s leading knowledge source for better life and work’.
The term ‘hybrid work’ became popular due to the upsurge of telework during the COVID-19 pandemic. The term has been increasingly used to refer to situations in which (teleworkable) work is performed both from the usual place of work (normally the employer’s premises) and from home (as experienced during the pandemic) or other locations. However, the concept of hybrid work is still blurry, and various meanings are in use. This topical update brings clarity to this concept by exploring available information from recent literature and the Network of Eurofound Correspondents.
Housing affordability is a matter of great concern across the EU. Poor housing affordability leads to housing evictions, housing insecurity, problematic housing costs and housing inadequacy. These problems negatively affect health and well-being, create unequal living conditions and opportunities, and come with healthcare costs, reduced productivity and environmental damage. Private market tenants face particularly large increases in the cost of housing.
Eurofound's annual review of minimum wages reports on the development of statutory and collectively agreed minimum wages across the EU and the processes through which they were set. The focus of this year’s report is on the impact of high inflation on the setting of minimum wage rates. In addition, new figures on the net value of minimum wages are presented, along with the latest policy-relevant research in the EU Member States and Norway.
Building on previous work by Eurofound, this report will investigate intergenerational dynamics over time. During the 2008 double-dip recession, worrying intergenerational divides appeared in many Member States, and while some of the economic and social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is universal, early data suggests disparities across demographic cohorts. Eurofound will examine how different age groups may have been affected in terms of their health, labour market participation, quality of life and financial needs, both in the short term and in the long term.
The COVID-19 pandemic triggered an extraordinary level of provision of social services across the EU. Healthcare and care providers carried much of the burden and, together with essential services, played a crucial role in getting citizens through the crisis. This report explores how public services adapted to the new reality and what role was played by the digital transformation of services. The aim is to contribute to the documentation and analysis of changes in funding, delivery and use of healthcare and social services during the pandemic.
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