Social Europe

  • EU Forward Project
  • YouTube
  • Podcast
  • Books
  • Newsletter
  • Membership

New Forms Of Employment Offer Both Benefits And Risks

Irene Mandl 27th March 2015

Irene Mandl, New Forms Of Employment

Irene Mandl

Social and economic changes in Europe have given rise to new forms of employment, many very different from traditional ‘work’. What are these new trends, and how do they affect working conditions and the labour market? Irene Mandl of Eurofound examines the findings of a special report.

The huge increase in the use of zero-hours contracts for workers in the UK and some other parts of Europe has rightly attracted a lot of attention – and criticism. There are said to be almost 250,000 in the UK in this type of employment alone. But there are plenty of other new forms of working that have emerged in the last 15 years. Some appear to offer some flexibility and security; others some precarity.

We’ve found that some of these new forms of working have the potential to transform traditional relationships between employers and employees. Also, work no longer is done at a permanent place (office or factory).  It can involve  an intermittent visit to the internet café to perform some task for another person over a few hours or sitting at one’s laptop or tablet at home running a small business.

Here are the new – and widely differing – forms Eurofound has identified:

  • Employee sharing, where an individual worker is jointly hired by employers in different companies, resulting in permanent full-time employment;
  • Job sharing, where an employer hires a group of workers to jointly fill a specific job, combining several part-time jobs into the equivalent of a full-time position;
  • Interim management, where experts are hired temporarily to conduct a specific project or solve a specific problem, integrating external management capacities within the organisation;
  • Casual work, where an employer is not obliged to provide regular work to the employee, but has the flexibility of calling them in on demand;
  • ICT-based mobile work, where workers do not exclusively work at the premises of the employer or client, but from any place at any time, supported by new technologies;
  • Voucher-based work, where the employer-employee relationship is not based on an employment or civil law contract, but on a voucher that the employer buys from an authorised organisation and hands over to the worker; this covers remuneration and social security contributions;
  • Portfolio work, where self-employed individuals work for a large number of clients and carry out small jobs for each of them;
  • Crowd employment, where a virtual platform matches employers and workers, often linked to larger tasks broken down into small jobs with a division of labour among a ‘virtual cloud’ of workers;
  • Collaborative employment, where freelancers, self-employed people or micro enterprises cooperate to overcome the limitations of their small size and professional isolation.

 

Working Conditions

These obviously vary enormously. But one can say that employee sharing, job sharing and interim management in particular seem to result in beneficial working conditions, as workers’ enhanced flexibility is combined with a decent level of security. But it’s not always a one-way street. ICT-based mobile work, for instance, offers higher flexibility, autonomy and empowerment, while also bringing about risks related to higher work intensity, increased stress levels, extra working hours, that blur boundaries between work and private life and even the outsourcing of traditional employer responsibilities onto the workers themselves.

For freelancers and the self-employed, portfolio work, crowd employment and collaborative employment can bring a richer mix of tasks through diversification. Voucher-based work entails some job insecurity, social and professional isolation as well as limited access to personnel services such as the offer of further training , but it does offer an improvement as regards social protection and might result in higher remuneration (if, for example, linked to a minimum wage).

Casual work is, clearly, characterised by low levels of job and income security, social protection and access to HR measures such as training. Its high flexibility might be appreciated by some workers, but tends to be excessive for most, in the sense that more continuity would be appreciated.

Labour Market Effects

When it comes to labour market effects, employee sharing, job sharing and interim management seem to be the most beneficial, while casual work can be considered as the most disadvantageous for the affected workers. All these new employment forms could bring positive effects as regards the labour market integration of specific groups of workers,; the job creation potential is, however,  rather limited.

Several of the emerging employment forms outlined here contribute to labour market innovation and making the labour market more attractive as they offer jobs which suit the needs of specific groups of workers, for example as regards the time and place of work or by making their employment less precarious. However, casual work in particular could increase labour market segmentation as it might result in a widespread acceptance of such fragmented jobs, that come with poor earnings and limited social protection.

Policy Pointers

The sheer variety of the new forms of employment as well as the costs and benefits attached to them present policy-makers with an array of choices. For those with positive effects on working conditions and the labour market (employee sharing, interim management or job sharing, for example) marketing and information campaigns to spread the message about them would be a good idea.

For casual work, ICT-based mobile work or crowd employment ‘safety nets’ for the workers are needed and should be arranged by the authorities, public and private. This could come through legislation, via collective bargaining agreements or the establishment of specific monitoring instruments like more specific follow-ups by labour inspectorates. A balance between the protection of workers and the practical applicability of the specific type of working for employers must be found here. 

You can access the full report here.

Irene Mandl

Irene Mandl is from Austria where she worked in policy-oriented socio-economic research in the field of employment/labour markets as well as entrepreneurship and industry analysis before joining Eurofound as research manager.

Harvard University Press Advertisement

Social Europe Ad - Promoting European social policies

We need your help.

Support Social Europe for less than €5 per month and help keep our content freely accessible to everyone. Your support empowers independent publishing and drives the conversations that matter. Thank you very much!

Social Europe Membership

Click here to become a member

Most Recent Articles

u421983ae 3b0caff337bf 0 Europe’s Euro Ambition: A Risky Bid for “Exorbitant Privilege”Peter Bofinger
u4219834676b2eb11 1 Trump’s Attacks on Academia: Is the U.S. University System Itself to Blame?Bo Rothstein
u4219834677aa07d271bc7 2 Shaping the Future of Digital Work: A Bold Proposal for Platform Worker RightsValerio De Stefano
u421983462ef5c965ea38 0 Europe Must Adapt to Its Ageing WorkforceFranz Eiffe and Karel Fric
u42198346789a3f266f5e8 1 Poland’s Polarised Election Signals a Wider Crisis for Liberal DemocracyCatherine De Vries

Most Popular Articles

startupsgovernment e1744799195663 Governments Are Not StartupsMariana Mazzucato
u421986cbef 2549 4e0c b6c4 b5bb01362b52 0 American SuicideJoschka Fischer
u42198346769d6584 1580 41fe 8c7d 3b9398aa5ec5 1 Why Trump Keeps Winning: The Truth No One AdmitsBo Rothstein
u421983467 a350a084 b098 4970 9834 739dc11b73a5 1 America Is About to Become the Next BrexitJ Bradford DeLong
u4219834676ba1b3a2 b4e1 4c79 960b 6770c60533fa 1 The End of the ‘West’ and Europe’s FutureGuillaume Duval
u421983462e c2ec 4dd2 90a4 b9cfb6856465 1 The Transatlantic Alliance Is Dying—What Comes Next for Europe?Frank Hoffer
u421983467 2a24 4c75 9482 03c99ea44770 3 Trump’s Trade War Tears North America Apart – Could Canada and Mexico Turn to Europe?Malcolm Fairbrother
u4219834676e2a479 85e9 435a bf3f 59c90bfe6225 3 Why Good Business Leaders Tune Out the Trump Noise and Stay FocusedStefan Stern
u42198346 4ba7 b898 27a9d72779f7 1 Confronting the Pandemic’s Toxic Political LegacyJan-Werner Müller
u4219834676574c9 df78 4d38 939b 929d7aea0c20 2 The End of Progess? The Dire Consequences of Trump’s ReturnJoseph Stiglitz

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

WSI Report

WSI Minimum Wage Report 2025

The trend towards significant nominal minimum wage increases is continuing this year. In view of falling inflation rates, this translates into a sizeable increase in purchasing power for minimum wage earners in most European countries. The background to this is the implementation of the European Minimum Wage Directive, which has led to a reorientation of minimum wage policy in many countries and is thus boosting the dynamics of minimum wages. Most EU countries are now following the reference values for adequate minimum wages enshrined in the directive, which are 60% of the median wage or 50 % of the average wage. However, for Germany, a structural increase is still necessary to make progress towards an adequate minimum wage.

DOWNLOAD HERE

S&D Group in the European Parliament advertisement

Cohesion Policy

S&D Position Paper on Cohesion Policy post-2027: a resilient future for European territorial equity”,

Cohesion Policy aims to promote harmonious development and reduce economic, social and territorial disparities between the regions of the Union, and the backwardness of the least favoured regions with a particular focus on rural areas, areas affected by industrial transition and regions suffering from severe and permanent natural or demographic handicaps, such as outermost regions, regions with very low population density, islands, cross-border and mountain regions.

READ THE FULL POSITION PAPER HERE

ETUI advertisement

HESA Magazine Cover

What kind of impact is artificial intelligence (AI) having, or likely to have, on the way we work and the conditions we work under? Discover the latest issue of HesaMag, the ETUI’s health and safety magazine, which considers this question from many angles.

DOWNLOAD HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Ageing workforce
How are minimum wage levels changing in Europe?

In a new Eurofound Talks podcast episode, host Mary McCaughey speaks with Eurofound expert Carlos Vacas Soriano about recent changes to minimum wages in Europe and their implications.

Listeners can delve into the intricacies of Europe's minimum wage dynamics and the driving factors behind these shifts. The conversation also highlights the broader effects of minimum wage changes on income inequality and gender equality.

Listen to the episode for free. Also make sure to subscribe to Eurofound Talks so you don’t miss an episode!

LISTEN NOW

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

Spring Issues

The Spring issue of The Progressive Post is out!


Since President Trump’s inauguration, the US – hitherto the cornerstone of Western security – is destabilising the world order it helped to build. The US security umbrella is apparently closing on Europe, Ukraine finds itself less and less protected, and the traditional defender of free trade is now shutting the door to foreign goods, sending stock markets on a rollercoaster. How will the European Union respond to this dramatic landscape change? .


Among this issue’s highlights, we discuss European defence strategies, assess how the US president's recent announcements will impact international trade and explore the risks  and opportunities that algorithms pose for workers.


READ THE MAGAZINE

Social Europe

Our Mission

Team

Article Submission

Advertisements

Membership

Social Europe Archives

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Miscellaneous

RSS Feed

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641