wealthier countries<\/a> \u2014 Austria, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Ireland \u2014 with a more balanced ratio ranging between 4% and 5%.<\/p>\nWho is the typical INE worker?<\/p>\n
People in unstable jobs are “disproportionately concentrated among blue-collar workers with primary education”, according to Eurofound.<\/p>\n
Around Europe, the average has barely budged over the past two decades, falling from 11% in 2006 to around 9% in 2024, after peaking at 13% in 2015. <\/p>\n
Women are more exposed than men, with the most pronounced gender gaps in France and Germany, and the smallest divides instead in the UK, Poland and Lithuania.<\/p>\n
Eurofound blames this discrepancy on “direct labour market discrimination”, explaining that some temporary contracts might even be used as “screening devices for workers whose commitment employers perceive as uncertain due to family responsibilities”.<\/p>\n
How are Poland and Spain tackling job uncertainty?<\/p>\n
Poland and Spain have two things in common. Both are among Europe’s fastest-growing economies and also have measures aimed at stabilising the job market.<\/p>\n
Poland saw the bloc’s steepest decline in INE jobs over the past two decades, from almost 22% in 2006 to just 7% in 2024. <\/p>\n
That’s thanks to labour code changes that, since 2016, have restricted the use of temporary contracts and raised their taxation, making them less attractive to employers.<\/p>\n
Spain addressed the issue by introducing a permanent contract for seasonal or intermittent workers \u2014 baristas, farmers, hotel staff \u2014 called fijo discontinuo. It’s a cyclical, temporary contract that renews every year, with no expiry date. When the “high season” begins again, the employer is legally compelled to call the employee back to work.<\/p>\n
Other countries that have shown relevant downward trends are Germany and the three Baltic states.<\/p>\n
Part-time lovers: Where are shorter working weeks popular?<\/p>\n
At the same time, there is a handful of countries where INE contracts \u2014 specifically, part-time arrangements \u2014 are a deliberate choice made by workers.<\/p>\n
In the Netherlands, 45% of part-time workers voluntarily chose that over a full-time contract. These kinds of arrangements are both “widespread and culturally embedded”, researchers say.<\/p>\n
Neighbouring Belgium shows a 25% rate, following the introduction of the “time-credit system”, a series of laws aimed at increasing work flexibility, “to help workers combine their career with their family life”, said the Universit\u00e9 catholique de Louvain in a study.<\/p>\n
Along the same lines, Eurofound says that part-time can improve work\u2013life balance and support labour market participation among groups with significant care responsibilities<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It might sound paradoxical, but for many employees across Europe, temporary work is a constant condition. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[72,113,1392,199270,1813,61,60,102,150,2846],"class_list":["post-480873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-employment","tag-euronews-compare","tag-europe","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-italy","tag-jobs","tag-spain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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