Categories: working conditions and sustainable work

  • One in five jobs in the EU classified as vulnerable

    Close to one in five jobs in the EU (19%) could be classified as vulnerable – a multidimensional phenomenon encompassing income inadequacy, employment insecurity and lack of workplace rights.

  • New technologies reshaping work, not destroying jobs

    Technology is more likely to create new tasks than remove existing ones, according to new findings from the unique pan-European Working Conditions Survey. Rather than widespread destruction, the primary challenges facing the EU workforce as digitalisation transforms the European labour market, are shifting towards skills mismatches, generational divides, and worker autonomy.

  • Good news on job quality for expanding European workforce - but survey highlights deep gender, generational and sectoral divides

    The new European Working Conditions Survey 2024 Overview report shows that job quality in Europe is improving, with long working hours and physically arduous working conditions on the decline. The share of employees working more than 48 hours per week has fallen since 2005. However, inequalities at the workplace persist, with women experiencing a deteriorating social environment at work.

  • International Women's Day 2026: Is work in Europe more stressful for women?

    At VoxBox Studios in the European Parliament, MEP Maria Walsh and Eurofound’s Barbara Gerstenberger mark International Women’s Day by analyzing gender equality data from 36,000 workers across 35 countries. They discuss the shift from industrial labor to modern challenges like burnout and technostress.

  • New pan-European survey reveals stark inequalities in working conditions

    Results from Eurofound’s pan-European flagship survey reveal significant improvements in job quality over the past decade but highlight stark inequalities between women and men, as well as radically different situations for workers in different parts of Europe.

  • Eurofound Talks: How can Europe adapt to an ageing workforce?

    How can Europe adapt to an ageing workforce? What impediments do older workers face at the workplace? How are changing technologies and job quality influencing the retention of older workers on the labour market? A new episode of the Eurofound Talks podcast series sets out to answer these questions in the context of changing demographics in Europe and the need to make work more sustainable.

  • Eurofound Talks: What is the future for gender equality in Europe?

    Eurofound, in partnership with the European Institute for Gender Equality, has published a special episode of the Eurofound Talks podcast for International Women’s Day. The episode looks at women’s progress in the labour market and society over the past five decades, as well as sticking points on the path to gender equality in Europe, particularly related to the gender employment and pay gaps.

  • Eurofound Talks: 50 years of social change in Ireland and Europe

    In this episode of the Eurofound Talks podcast Mary McCaughey speaks with Eurofound Deputy Director Maria Jepsen, and Barry Colfer, Director of Research at the Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA), about European social change over the past 50 years, Eurofound’s role in these changes, how Ireland itself has developed and changed, and the challenges currently on the horizon.

  • 2023 was a good year to be working in Europe

    Eurofound’s 2023 yearbook, Living and working in Europe, provides a snapshot of the latest developments in the work and lives of Europeans as explored in the Agency’s research activities over the course of the year.

  • Almost half of trainees in the EU do not receive compensation

    Only 54% of traineeships or apprenticeships in the EU receive compensation, according to Eurofound data published in a new report by the European Court of Auditors on participation, quality and outcomes of traineeships in the 27 EU Member States. The report highlights the need to improve the quality of traineeship offerings, including learning support and the possibility of obtaining new skills.

  • Eurofound Talks: Is it a right to disconnect?

    In a new episode of Eurofound Talks Mary McCaughey speaks with Eurofound Research Manager Tina Weber about the evolution of the right to disconnect in Europe, the reasons why legislative and procedural actions are being called for, the impacts that effective right to disconnect policies can have, and what the debate indicates about the post-pandemic world of work.

  • Self-employment in Europe has stagnated and could decline in the future

    The proportion of self-employed workers in the EU has not increased over the past two and a half decades, and fell from 15.4% to 13.7% between 2010 and 2022. This reduction was primarily driven by falling self-employment among men and the imbalance between labour market exits among older self-employed workers and the creation of new self-employment.

  • Tackling the gender pay and employment gaps

    In a new episode of Eurofound Talks, recorded for International Women’s Day 2024, Mary McCaughey speaks with Eurofound researchers Carlos Vacas and Barbara Gerstenberger about the gender pay and employment gaps in Europe.

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