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  • With  9%-15% of workers in Europe in arduous jobs, timely interventions are needed to make work sustainable

    Mid-career reviews key to longer and healthier working lives

    Mid-career reviews (MCR), where employers organise an assessment of workers in the workplace at a mid-point in their working life, are an important tool to ensure that workers' skills continue to match the job demands, or whether a change in tasks or career is required. Eurofound's new report Changing places: Mid-career review and internal mobility, launched in Brussels today, shows that timely mi

  • Europe’s slow-burning issue – making work sustainable

    Europe’s slow-burning issue – making work sustainable

    Making work sustainable is not simply a challenge for politicians and policymakers in the European Union: it is a fundamental issue that underpins the future of the world of work in Europe. It goes beyond the mantra of raising employment rates and deals with productivity and innovation – and the everyday lives of workers throughout the EU.

  • Publication alert: Approaches to the labour market integration of refugees and asylum seekers

    Publication alert: Approaches to the labour market integration of refugees and asylum seekers

    Eurofound’s new report takes forward existing research on the labour market integration of refugees (those with the officially recognised status of international protection) and asylum seekers (those who have applied for international protection and are awaiting a decision). The report provides updated information on legislation and practical arrangements in the first half of 2016, examines labour

  • Mapping reasons for self-employment: Choice not the only factor

    Mapping reasons for self-employment: Choice not the only factor

    The reasons why people choose self-employment reflect both the choices available to them and the overall economic situation in their country. The sixth EWCS asked workers what was the main driver for becoming self-employed. The answers vary greatly between countries: 86% of self-employed workers in Sweden said they opted for self-employment ‘mainly through own personal preferences’. However, only

  • Developing potential of strategic employee sharing

    Developing potential of strategic employee sharing

    The European labour market is still largely dominated by traditional employment forms – permanent full-time contracts, or self-employment. However, there is a marked increase in new forms of employment that aim to align employers’ needs for flexibility with workers’ needs for security and stability. Strategic employee sharing provides the opportunity for a group of employers with recurring resourc

  • Progress on Enforcement Directive on posted workers

    Progress on Enforcement Directive on posted workers

    In 2014, the EU adopted a new Enforcement Directive (Directive 2014/67/EU) to address concerns surrounding regulations regarding the posting of workers in Europe. Member States had two years until the deadline of 18 June 2016 to transpose and adapt their national regulations. A recently published topical update from Eurofound’s Observatory of Working Life (EurWORK ) considers the progress made by

  • Access to work for refugees and asylum seekers

    Access to work for refugees and asylum seekers

    Part of the solution to the refugee situation in Europe is to swiftly integrate those who have arrived into host countries’ labour markets. Refugees and asylum seekers, however, face many obstacles to getting work, including lengthy asylum procedures, poor conditions in reception centres and lack of adequate support. Eurofound is holding a national-level seminar entitled ‘EU labour market integrat

  • Launching #6EWCS in European Parliament

    Launching #6EWCS in European Parliament

    The first panel session at the launch of the sixth EWCS focused on ‘Job quality – Challenges and opportunties’. Pictured at the session are (from left) David Foden, Head of Unit Working Conditions and Industrial Relations, Eurofound, Georgi Pirinski, Bulgarian MEP in the S&D Group; Claude Rolin, Belgian MEP (EPP Group); Marita Ulvskog, Swedish MEP (S&D Group) and Vice-Chair of the Parliame

  • Tackling fraudulent practices in employment

    Tackling fraudulent practices in employment

    Bogus self-employment, abuse of the posting of workers and sham subcontracting arrangements are all examples of fraudulent employment practices that infringe the basic protection provided by employment law and collective bargaining.

    Eurofound’s latest report, Exploring the fraudulent contracting of work in the European Union, explores the extent and impact of such contracting of work in Eur

  • Sixth EWCS report launched in Brussels

    Sixth EWCS report launched in Brussels

    On 17 November, Eurofound launched the overview report of its sixth European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) at a day-long conference in the European Parliament.

    Since 1991, Eurofound has been using the survey to monitor working conditions in Europe. The report explores the findings of interviews with almost 44,000 workers in 35 European countries. It analyses the data using seven dimensio

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