Over a quarter (27%) of adults in the EU are vaccine hesitant, with 29% of men and 25% of women indicating that they were either ‘very unlikely’ or ‘rather unlikely’ to take the COVID-19 vaccine in Eurofound’s large-scale Living, working and COVID-19 online survey.
Across Europe, citizens are feeling the divisive social and economic fallout of the pandemic and a dwindling number now view crisis support measures as fair and efficient.
Released just before the publication of the results of the latest Living, working and COVID-19 e-survey, Eurofound's 2020 yearbook takes stock of how much has happened in just 12 months, projects what might lie ahead, and sets the scene for EU policymakers as they seek to shape Europe’s policy responses.
On 9 May, the Conference on the Future of Europe will get underway. Floated well before the COVID-19 outbreak, its timing in the wake of the seismic shifts precipitated by the pandemic, and its implementation alongside the European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan, means that the outcomes could be far-reaching.
Eurofound’s new policy brief on ‘Education, healthcare and housing - How access changed for children and families in 2020’ focuses on the aspects of accessibility for children and families for which Eurofound has data and highlights differences in accessibility before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This year’s theme to mark International Women’s Day on 8 March is Choose to Challenge (or #ChooseToChallenge, if you prefer). The idea is to highlight that ‘from challenge comes change’ and that ‘we can all choose to challenge and call out gender bias and inequality’.
Eurofound’s Living, working and COVID-19 online survey aims to capture the far-reaching implications of the pandemic for the way people live and work across Europe. Two rounds of the online survey have been carried out to date. The third round is launched today, 15 February, and will be open until 29 March 2021.
Nominal statutory minimum wages in most Member States and the UK continued to rise in 2021. With inflation being low, this has resulted in real increases for those minimum wage workers who have managed to retain their jobs and the same working hours.
Healthcare providers have been overwhelmed by the demand for COVID-19-related care. Medical appointments and treatments for other conditions have often been delayed, potentially leading to escalating health problems and greater future care needs among those who have missed out. If the pandemic leads to an economic crash, this rise in unmet medical needs could spiral.
In the most successful businesses, managers were found to facilitate employees to work independently rather than to focus on controlling whether they carried out their tasks. Closely monitoring employee behaviour might indeed ensure that workers do their job but is unlikely to motivate them to go beyond their job description.
Stefan Gran has been elected Chair of Eurofound’s Management Board during the third meeting of the Board on 6 November 2020. He takes over from outgoing chair Aviana Bulgarelli, Ministry of Labour and Social Policies (Ministero del Lavoro, della Salute), Italy.
Eurofound’s new flagship report ‘Challenges and prospects in the EU: Industrial relations Developments 2015-2019’ provides an overview of developments in industrial relations and social dialogue in recent years, prior to the COVID-19 outbreak.
An ageing Europe and rising public expenditure on long-term care have signalled for some time that the fundamentals of care provision need to be addressed. However, the shocking death toll in care homes during the COVID-19 pandemic and the fact that many long-term care services were ill-equipped to protect their vulnerable users have lately focused the public mind on the issue.
At the end of his term as Executive Director on 30 November 2020, we engaged in a socially distant interview with Juan Menéndez-Valdés to review the last decade, his thoughts on Europe and his hopes for Eurofound.
The gender pay gap in gross hourly earnings in the EU was 14.8% in 2018. To help combat discriminatory pay practices by employers, the European Commission recommended in 2014 the introduction of pay transparency measures in all Member States. But more than half still have not implemented any such measures. Where do Member States currently stand on the agenda?
According to the recently published European Company Survey 2019 by EU agencies Eurofound and Cedefop, almost all managers (96%) agree training is important for employees to do their current job and most workplaces in the EU offer at least some training, yet only a small number – 9% – offer comprehensive training and learning opportunities to most of their employees.
The #EurofoundCompanySurvey ECS 2019 demonstrates that companies can design their workplace practices to help generate outcomes that benefit both workers and employers. Eurofound is organising a live #AskTheExpert webinar session on 29 October to delve into the European Company Survey 2019 findings relating to skills.
New data from Eurofound’s European Company Survey (ECS) show that two-thirds of workers (private sector, with more than 10 employees, EU27) are estimated to have their wages set via a collective wage agreement. Bargaining coverage is substantially higher in countries where there are sectoral agreements and where these are frequently extended to non-covered companies or workers.
Young people are overrepresented in the sectors hit hardest by COVID-19 restrictions, such as retail, travel and hospitality. According to Eurofound’s ‘Living, working and COVID-19’ survey of people in Europe, 11% of respondents aged 18–29 lost their jobs during the pandemic, compared to 8% of workers over 30.
One in five companies in the EU-27 succeed in providing the optimal workplace environment, according to the new European Company Survey, This report is based on the fourth edition of the European Company Survey (ECS), which was carried out jointly by Eurofound and Cedefop in 2019.
