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Employment status

Employment status refers to the contractual aspect of employment in terms of duration and number of working hours, incorporating economic risk, the autonomy and the authority which workers have in their jobs. The main categories are employee and self-employed. Employees are defined as someone who gets a salary from an employer or a temporary employment agency, with a distinction between employees with an unlimited or fixed-term contract. Self-employed persons can have employees. Across all workers a distinction can be made between those who work full-time and those who work part-time, either voluntarily or involuntarily.

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Presentation made at the 'Informal meeting of Employment and Social Affairs Ministers (EPSCO)' by Ivailo Kalfin, Executive Director, Eurofound and Prof. dr. Paul Schoukens, Full Professor, KU Leuven. Belgian Presidency...

Presentation
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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 Setembro 2023
Corporate news

Eurofound expert(s)

John Hurley

John Hurley is a senior research manager in the Employment unit at Eurofound. He took up the role of research manager in February 2012. He is responsible for the European...

Senior research manager,
Employment research unit
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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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​Martina Bisello is a research manager in the Employment unit at Eurofound. Her research interests include gender gaps in the labour market, occupational change and the impact of...

Research manager,
Employment research unit
Publications results (26)

Labour market slack is the shortfall between the volume of work desired by workers and the actual volume of work available. The most important indicator of labour slack is the unemployment rate, but an exclusive focus on this fails to take account of the four-fifths of the jobless population who are

18 July 2017

This report examines developments in non-standard employment over the last decade. It looks at trends in the main categories of non-standard employment – temporary, temporary agency and part-time work and self-employment – based mainly on data from the European Union Labour Force Survey.

13 July 2017

Although standard employment is still dominant in European labour markets, an increasing range of new employment forms is emerging that differ in their implications for working conditions. This study explores strategic employee sharing, an employment form for companies that have specific HR needs

21 November 2016

The fraudulent contracting of work is an important issue in many European countries today. EU and national policymakers have turned their attention to violations of the basic protection provided by employment law and collective bargaining that are linked to the fraudulent use of certain employment

21 November 2016

Smartphone car service Uber, a successful company example of the sharing economy, has spread to many EU Member States in recent years. However, many employers and unions are concerned about its challenge to fair competition for other businesses in the sector and about the erosion of working

25 January 2016

Europe has begun to emerge from the prolonged slump caused by the global financial crisis in 2008 and exacerbated by the euro zone single-currency crisis in 2010–2011. In the last year, aggregate employment levels have risen faster than at any time since 2008. This, the fourth annual European Jobs

09 July 2015

An increasing number of European workers have part-time jobs or non-standard types of work, such as the zero-hours employment contracts that have become common in the UK. Yet most European workers with temporary contracts would like permanent jobs, and one third of people working part time would

14 April 2015

This report examines employment opportunities for people with chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, chronic respiratory disease, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, arthritis and mental health problems in the EU28 Member States and Norway. People with a chronic disease may have a

14 November 2014

This report describes recent structural shifts in employment in European labour markets before, during and after the 2008–2009 recession. It finds that employment destruction across Europe in the recession was strongly polarising in terms of the wage structure, while there was less polarisation in

13 March 2013

This report describes the impact of the ‘great recession’ on employment and the job structure in the EU27. It finds that despite a net loss of over five million jobs between 2008–2010, employment continued to grow in top-paying jobs, largely in knowledge-intensive services and business services

16 January 2012

Online resources results (152)

Germany: The IAB Establishment Panel

The IAB Establishment Panel is an annual survey of 16,000 establishments in Germany that employ at least one worker who pays social security contributions. The survey, which is run by the Institute for Employment Research (IAB), was launched in western Germany in 1993 and extended to eastern Germany

Part-time pensioners have long careers

Part-time pensions have existed in Finland since 1987. They can be granted as a statutory earnings-related pension to both wage earners and self-employed people who move from full-time to part-time work [1]. People who are aged 60–67 years are entitled to receive the part-time pension. A total of

Flexible working time accounts prove their worth during the crisis

Despite the dramatic reduction in production and volume of orders in German companies during the economic crisis, employment remained remarkably stable. As well as the introduction of short-time working, the use of flexible working time accounts is said to be one reason why adverse effects on

50 years of change in employment

A recent paper (in French, 166Kb PDF) [1] by Oliver Marchand of the Demographic and Social Statistics Directorate of the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (Insee [2]) examined trends in the workforce and employment structure in France between 1962 and 2007. Highlights of his

Fewer and shorter contracts for agency workers

A report (in Italian, 3.73Mb PDF) [1] on the activities of Forma.Temp [2] (the bipartite training fund for the temporary agency sector, IT0807019Q [3]) in 2009 was published jointly by Forma.Temp and Ebitemp [4] (the bipartite body for temporary work) in July 2010. The report summarises trends in

Crisis impacts usage of fixed-term contracts

Because it is easier to end fixed-term contracts than open-ended ones, fixed-term workers might be expected to be more strongly affected by the economic crisis than those on standard employment contracts. But although this trend was evident across the EU, Eurostat’s Labour Force Survey (LFS) figures

Glass ceiling effect of working time arrangements

In his recent book, /Lavorare al tempo del cliente nel post-fordismo/ (‘Working at the customer’s pace in post-Fordism’), Giancarlo Cerruti summarises the changes in working time arrangements at a hypermarket on the outskirts of Turin between 1991 (three years after its opening) and 2009. The

Rise in undeclared work 2004–2009

For the first time, the Statistical Bulletin on Labour and Social Protection – 2009 [1] published under the aegis of the Romanian Ministry of Labour, Family and Social Protection [2] included a chapter on undeclared work [3]. [1] http://www.mmuncii.ro/ro/676-view.html [2] http://www.mmuncii.ro/ro/

Rising numbers of temporary employees and independent contractors

The number of employees with a fixed contract and independent contractors in the Dutch labour market has risen almost constantly over the last few decades, with only some decline in harsh economic times and a more than average increase after the recession. This rise is absolute (Figure 1) as well as

Failures of vocational training

Research outlined in the 2008 and 2009 Hungarian labour market yearbooks (Kézdi et al, 2008 and 2009) suggests that the position of skilled workers with vocational qualifications in the labour market shows no sign of improvement. This update summarises the main findings of this research, along with


Blogs results (3)
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While 2020 may come to be seen as the year platform work gathered pace and started to go mainstream – thanks in large part to COVID-19 containment measures sparking an increase in food and grocery delivery – 2021 could be the year that regulation of platform work is set in motion. The well-known

24 Fevereiro 2021
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A debate has started in Italy about the support that the state should provide to undeclared workers operating in the informal economy during the COVID-19 crisis. Nunzia Catalfo, Italy’s Minister of Labour in April stated that ‘undeclared work should not exist’ but went on to acknowledge ‘it is a

11 Maio 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 Abril 2020

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