Skip to content

Topics: European Union issues

  • Social partners’ role in European Semester

    The social partners across Europe are not participating in the European Semester as was originally envisaged, even after the 2015 revamp of the process that aimed to encourage their greater involvement in the drafting of the national reform programmes (NRPs).

  • Treaty of Rome at heart of living and working in Europe

    25 March marks 60 years since the signing of the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community, known as the Treaty of Rome. A seminal document, largely dedicated to economic integration and prosperity, it also enshrined the broader concepts of peace and equality

  • EU income inequality and the Great Recession

    In this blog piece, originally posted on Social Europe, Eurofound researchers Carlos Vacas-Soriano and Enrique-Fernández-Macías look at the development of income inequalities in Europe since the Great Recession.

  • Income inequalities in Europe on the rise since Great Recession

    Income inequalities have increased in around two-thirds of EU Member States largely due to growing unemployment levels since the onset of the crisis. At the same time EU-wide income inequality also increased as income convergence between European countries stalled.

  • Reducing Europe’s gender employment gap

    On the occasion of International Women's Day, Eurofound Senior Research Manager Massimiliano Mascherini looks at the impact of the gender employment gap on Europe.

  • Putting a gender spotlight on living and working in Europe

    8 March is International Women’s Day. The day marks the wide-scale progress made towards achieving gender equality and combating gender-based injustice, but also serves as an important impetus to ensure the spotlight remains on continued work towards realising these goals across the globe.

  • Growth of minimum wages accelerates across Europe

    The growth in average (nominal) pay of employees has accelerated in recent years in EU countries after a slump following the economic crisis (AMECO data). Similar developments show up in data on collectively agreed wages. However, higher wage growth figures do not automatically mean that all employees benefit equally

  • ‘Working anytime, anywhere: The effects on the world of work’ - new report highlights opportunities and challenges of expanding telework

    The expanding use of digital technologies such as smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktop computers for work for home and elsewhere is rapidly transforming the traditional model of work. It can improve work-life balance, reduce commuting time, and boost productivity, but it can also potentially result in longer working hours, higher work intensity and work-home interference.

  • Minimum wages on the rise as Europe moves to curb social dumping

    The growth in the level of minimum wages accelerated in the period between January 2016 and January 2017, with the largest increases in newer EU Member States. This continues a trend of slow convergence between minimum wage levels in Europe - however there is still a long way to go, with minimum wage workers in Luxembourg making eight and a half times as much as minimum wage workers in Bulgaria. T

  • Publication alert - Delivering hospital services: A greater role for the private sector?

    Our new publication Delivering hospital services: A greater role for the private sector? examines the role and contribution of the private provision of hospital services in the European Union. The report maps the extent of private provision across Europe, examines the drivers for increased private provision, describes how it takes place and presents the views of different stakeholders.

  • 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

    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

    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

  • Jobs, Jobs, Jobs! Three Beautiful Words For Mr Trump

    And even in the confused and contentious context of the new US President-elect as well as the EU’s post- Brexit deliberations, it is hard to argue otherwise.
    But, while having a job in the first place is clearly of paramount importance to people - and society at large – there is also a more sophisticated issue at play with wider ramifications for the world of work and life today: the quality of

Show more