Evaluating the prevalence of employees without written terms of employment in the European Union

What is it about?

Until now, there has been scant evidence on the proportion and characteristics of employees working without a written contract or terms of employment. To begin to fill this gap, the aim of this paper is to evaluate the prevalence and distribution of employees without written contracts or terms of employment in the European Union (EU), examining whether they are unevenly distributed across countries and EU regions, and whether it is vulnerable population groups who are more likely to be without such written contracts. To do this, a 2013 Eurobarometer survey comprising 11,025 face-to-face interviews with employees in the 28 member states of the European Union (EU-28) is reported.

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Why is it important?

The finding is that it is less socio-demographic and socio-economic characteristics, and more firm size, institutional environment and spatial factors that are important in explaining the prevalence of employment without a written contract. Thus, governments should address not individuals but rather, the formal institutional failings and asymmetry between civic and state morality, in order to reduce the level of employment without a written contract, and focus their attention on smaller firms, larger towns and Southern European countries, especially Cyprus, Malta and Portugal.

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