Data from December 2024 | Planned article update: December 2025
Highlights
In the EU, 16.2% of employed women with a low level of education and having children had a temporary job in 2023.
In 2023, 15.5% of temporary workers were employed in elementary occupations against 7.5% of non-temporary workers.
Introduction
This article presents the most recent insights on temporary employment based on the EU Labour Force Survey (EU LFS). It shows the trend in temporary employment and informs on the profile of temporary workers along several dimensions such as sex, age, level of education, occupation, and the presence of children in the household. Additionally, the article illustrates the situation of temporary agency work, across EU, EFTA and candidate countries. This article addresses temporary and permanent employment in EU countries, in their main job.
Main concept
The status of employed people can be employees, self-employed with employees (employers), self-employed without employees (own-account workers) or unpaid family workers. On-call or casual workers are classified as employee or self-employed depending on the specific characteristics of their employment relationship. All types of employment can be part-time or full-time.
In the EU, the vast majority of employed people work as employees under either permanent or temporary contract. Temporary employment refers to employees with fixed-term contracts (or contracts with limited duration) while permanent employment refers to employees with no end date in their contract (or contracts of unlimited duration). Employment other than temporary includes any type of employment except temporary employees, thus permanent employee, self-employed, family workers and those who did not respond.
A job may be considered temporary employment if both, the person in employment and the economic unit he/she works for, agree that its end is decided by objective rules, which are usually written down in a work contract of limited duration. These rules can be represented by different criteria such as a specific date, the end of a task, or the return of another employee who has been temporarily replaced. Typical cases may include seasonal workers, people who replace workers in maternity leave, project-based contracts, and people with specified training contracts.
Being in temporary employment can be a choice or a necessity, and this may change across age groups. In 2023, in the age group 15-29, the most common reasons reported for having contracts with limited duration include the following: participation in education or training (29.7% of employees with a temporary job); no permanent job found (20.3%); job only available with a temporary contract (16.4%). However, amongst people aged 25-64, the most frequent reasons for being temporary workers were ‘no permanent job found’ (34.8% of employees with a temporary job) and job only available with a temporary contract (26.9%). It is interesting to notice that, in both age groups, 12.3% of employees with a temporary job are in a probation period. However, the reason ‘no permanent job wanted’ differs between the two age groups holding a contract with limited duration (11.3% for the age group 15-29 and 8.1% for the age group 25-64). These figures may indicate that, for people aged 25-64, being under temporary employment is less an intentional choice than for people aged 15-29.
Developments in temporary employment
This section of the article (Figure 1 and Figure 2) covers temporary employment overall, for those aged 15-64. The focus is on the shares of employees having temporary contracts in the total employed people. Changes across years (last 10 years) are presented, and comparisons across genders are described.
Since 2019, a significant reduction in the share of temporary employment can be observed, with some differences between men and women (see Figure 1). Between 2019 and 2023, the total share of temporary employment decreased by 1.6 percentage points (pp.), despite a noticeable increase between 2020 and 2021 following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the labour market. However, despite such an increase it did not go back to pre-pandemic values. In fact, in 2017 (the year with highest percentages of temporary employment on the total employed population, between 2014 and 2023), total temporary employment was 13.8%, i.e. 12.9% for men and 14.9% for women. Compared to 2017, in 2022 (the year with highest percentages of temporary employment on the total employed population, between 2020 and 2023), total temporary employment was 12.1%, i.e. 11.1% for men and 13.4% for women.
Furthermore, gender differences in temporary employment remained quite stable from 2017 to 2023, regardless of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which may indicate a more structural trend in women’s participation in temporary employment. The difference between men and women in temporary employment, between 2017 and 2023, remained approximately the same (i.e. 2 pp, with higher values for women).
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(age group 15-64, percentage of total employment)
Source: Eurostat (lfsi_pt_a)
Investigating whether the trend in temporary employment follows the same trend as for other employed people might be relevant to better understand the developments and changes over the years. The comparison in the last 10 years of annual changes in temporary employment and in employment other than temporary, shows that, most of the time, participation in temporary employment varied to a larger extent than participation in any other type of labour contract and employment status (see Figure 2). The greatest differences between the two categories of workers can be seen since 2019, with an annual increasing difference until 2023. It is also relevant to underline the significant impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on temporary employment in 2020 when the number of temporary workers decreased by 11.5% meanwhile the number of other employed people decreased by 0.4%. Whilst, between 2018 and 2019, a decrease of 2.5% in the number of people in temporary employment was recorded as opposed to an increase of 1.6% in the number of people in the other categories of employment. Between 2022 and 2023, temporary employment decreased by 3.7%, while non-temporary employment increased by 1.7%.
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(age group 15-64, percentage of total employment)
Source: Eurostat (lfsi_pt_a) and (lfsi_emp_a)
Worker profile and countries
In the age group 15-29, the share of employees with fixed-term jobs is much higher than the share of temporary employees in the age group 30-64, for both men and women (see Figure 3). Therefore, younger aged people are more likely to be in temporary employment, in their main job. In the group of employed people aged 30-64, the share of women working as employees with a permanent job is 80.4% compared to the share of men of 75.5%. However, there are more men than women in the category ‘other’ which brings together all the non-employees, such as contributing family workers and self-employed people. This might imply a greater participation of men in non-standard forms of employment.
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Breaking down employed persons by their level of education discloses significant differences (see Figure 4).
Overall, men and women with a low level of education are less likely to work under a permanent contract, compared to employed people with medium and high level of education, where the majority of workers is made up of employees with permanent jobs. Interestingly, in the group of employees with permanent jobs, while the number of women is approximately the same for those in medium and high levels of education, the number of men working as employees with permanent job varies significantly between those who have a medium level of education (37.9 million of persons) and a high-level education (26.8 million of persons).
When comparing participation in temporary and permanent employment, the greatest differences between men and women can be noticed in the group of employees with a permanent job and medium level of education (37.9 million men compared to 31.8 million women), as well as the group of employees with a permanent job and low level of education (8.5 million of women compared to 12.9 million of men). This data might present a potential mismatch between the level of education and the possibility of obtaining and/or searching for the status of employee with a contract of unlimited duration, for women.
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In 2023, 23.1 million people aged 15-64 worked as employees with fixed-term jobs in the EU. In other words, 11.6% of employed people in the EU were temporary workers (see Figure 5). The highest shares were recorded in the Netherlands (23.1%) and Portugal (15.3%), while the lowest shares can be observed in Romania (2.1%) and Lithuania (1.7%). When looking into the differences across age groups, there are some considerable variations at EU level and across countries (in the latter case, except for the age group 55-64, where differences were not so pronounced amongst EU countries). At EU level, the greatest differences in participation in temporary employment emerge between people aged 15-29 (32.1%) and the other age groups (respectively, 7.9% for people aged 30-54 and 4.9% for people aged 55.64). At country level, among employed people aged 15-29, the highest shares of temporary employment were reported in the Netherlands (50.3%), Portugal (40.2%) and Italy (37.8%); the lowest share can be found in Lithuania (3.7%), immediately followed by Latvia (4.0%). Furthermore, for employed people aged 30-54, the highest shares of temporary employment were reported in the Netherlands (14.4%), Spain (12.5%) and Portugal (11.9%), while the lowest value can be observed in Lithuania (1.3%), followed by Romania (1.7%).
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At EU level, 2.4% of employed people are temporary agency workers (see Figure 6). At country level, Latvia and Slovakia recorded the highest participation in temporary employment agency work (respectively, 6.1% and 5.6% of total employed people). In 2023, this type of employment was less frequent in Hungary, Poland and Romania, where only 0.5% of working people were temporary agent workers. Overall, men tend to work as temporary agency workers more than women. The greatest differences in the shares of temporary agency work, between men and women, are shown in the Netherlands (5.8% for men and 3.9% for women) and France (3.4% for men and 1.7% for women).
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(age group 15-64, percentage of total employment)
Source: Eurostat (lfsa_qoe_4a6r2)
Fixed-term contracts by occupation
Comparing the distribution of temporary workers with the distribution of employment other than temporary by main ISCO-08 occupational categories (see Figure 7) contribute to providing more information on the occupational profile of temporary workers and investigating whether temporary employment is over or under-represented in one or more occupational categories compared to other workers (i.e. employees with permanent contracts, self-employed people and contributing family workers).
In 2023, temporary employment was mainly concentrated in the occupational categories of professionals, and service and sales workers. 21.2% of the total temporary workers were professionals (i.e. occupations whose main tasks require a high level of professional knowledge and experience in life or social sciences) – professionals represented a similar share of non-temporary employment (22.6%). 21.1% of the total temporary workers provide personal and protective services related to travel, housekeeping, catering, personal care, protection against fire and unlawful acts; or demonstrate and sell goods.
Temporary employment is over-represented in two occupational categories, namely service and sales workers, and elementary occupations which consist of simple and routine tasks which mainly require the use of hand-held tools and often some physical effort. In the latter category of occupations were employed 15.5% of temporary workers, against 7.5% of other workers. Conversely, temporary employment is under-represented in the category of managers, where only 1.3% of temporary workers were managers, in 2023, against 5.6% of non-temporary workers. Also, in the category of technicians and associate professionals, temporary workers are relatively under-represented: 13.2% of the total temporary workers were technicians and associate professionals, against 16.6% among non-temporary workers.
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(age group 15-64, percentage of total employment in each employment type)
Source: Eurostat (lfsa_etgais) and (lfsa_egais)
Presence of children in the household
In the EU, the share of temporary employment differs significantly according to the level of education and to the presence or absence of children in the household (see Figure 8).
In 2023, more women than men, with a low level of education and having children, worked under a fixed-term contract (i.e. 10.7% of employed men against 16.2% of employed women, which also represents the highest share of temporary employment in the total employed people, for women). At the same time, the lowest share of temporary employment was reported by men with a high level of education and with children (4.1%).
For each level of education, significant differences between men and women with temporary employment were observed among those with children, where more women than men are employees with fixed-term jobs (overall, 9.4% of employed people are women with children, against 5.8% of men with children). Much less differences in participation in temporary employment were found between men and women with no children, with the only exception of highly qualified people: interestingly, in this category, 11.4% of employees with fixed-term jobs were women with high level of education and no children, against 8.7% of men. Regardless of the level of education and the presence or absence of children in the household, women are well represented in the group of employees with permanent job, and their share on total employment was always higher than the share of men in 2023.
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Source data for tables and graphs
Methods and definitions
Data sources
All figures in this article are based on the European Union Labour Force Survey (EU LFS).
Source: The European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) is the largest European household sample survey providing quarterly and annual results on labour participation of people aged 15 years and over as well as on persons outside the labour force. It covers residents in private households. Conscripts in military or community service are not included in the results. The EU-LFS is based on the same target populations and uses the same definitions in all countries, which means that the results are comparable among the countries. The EU-LFS is an important source of information about the situation and trends in the national and EU labour markets. Each quarter around 1.8 million interviews are conducted throughout the participating countries to obtain statistical information for some 100 variables. Due to the diversity of information and the large sample size, the EU-LFS is also an important source for other European statistics like Education statistics or Regional statistics.
Reference period: Yearly results are obtained as averages of the four quarters in the year.
Coverage: The results from the survey currently cover all European Union Member States, the EFTA Member States Iceland, Norway and Switzerland, as well as the candidate countries Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Türkiye. For Cyprus, the survey covers only the areas of Cyprus controlled by the Government of the Republic of Cyprus.
European aggregates: EU refers to the totality of the EU of 27 Member States. If data are unavailable for a country, the calculation of the corresponding aggregates takes into account the data for the same country for the most recent period available. Such cases are indicated.
Country notes
The Netherlands collects EU-LFS data using a rolling reference week instead of a fixed reference week, i.e. interviewed persons are asked about the situation of the week before the interview rather than a pre-selected week.
Definitions
The concepts and definitions used in the EU-LFS follow the resolutions of the International Conference of Labour Statisticians (ICLS) which is held every 5 years in Geneva, organized by the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
Employment covers persons living in private households, who during the reference week performed work, even for just one hour, for pay, profit or family gain, or were not at work but had a job or business from which they were temporarily absent, for example because of illness, holidays, industrial dispute or education and training.
Employment can be measured in terms of the number of persons or jobs, in full-time equivalents or in hours worked. All the estimates presented in this article use the number of persons; the information presented for employment rates is also built on estimates for the number of persons. Employment statistics are frequently reported as employment rates to discount the changing size of countries' populations over time and to facilitate comparisons between countries of different sizes. These rates are typically published for the working age population, which is generally considered to be those aged between 15 and 64 years. The 15 to 64 years age range is also a standard used by other international statistical organisations (although the age range of 20 to 64 years is given increasing prominence by some policymakers as a rising share of the EU population continue their studies into tertiary education).
The EU LFS employment concept differs from national accounts domestic employment, as the latter sets no limit on age or type of household, and also includes the non-resident population contributing to GDP and conscripts in military or community service.
Different articles on detailed technical and methodological information are available through: EU labour force survey.
Please note that Eurostat provides two sets of indicators linked to the annual employment rate, which serve different purposes and which in some cases differ from each other:
1) The LFS main indicators, which contains seasonally adjusted series. They include the labour market headline indicators used e.g. in the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure Scoreboard or the European Statistical Recovery Dashboard and are consequently used for monitoring policy. They have only a few breakdowns and normally refer to the age group 20-64 years.
2) The detailed results, which contain series that are not seasonally adjusted. They have a large number of breakdowns and can therefore be used for more detailed analysis.
Main concepts: Some main employment characteristics, as defined by the EU-LFS, include:
- employees are defined as those who work for a public or private employer and who receive compensation in the form of wages, salaries, payment by results, or payment in kind; non-conscript members of the armed forces are also included;
- self-employed persons work in their own business, farm or professional practice. A self-employed person is considered to be working during the reference week if she/he meets one of the following criteria: works for the purpose of earning profit; spends time on the operation of a business; or is currently establishing a business;
- the distinction between full-time and part-time work is generally based on a spontaneous response by the respondent. The main exceptions are the Netherlands and Iceland where a 35 hours threshold is applied, Sweden where a threshold is applied to the self-employed, and Norway where persons working between 32 and 36 hours are asked whether this is a full- or part-time position;
- an employee is considered as having a temporary job if employer and employee agree that its end is determined by objective conditions, such as a specific date, the completion of an assignment, or the return of an employee who is temporarily replaced. Typical cases include: people in seasonal employment; people substituting a person in maternal or paternal leave; people engaged by an agency or employment exchange and hired to a third party to perform a specific task (unless there is a written work contract of unlimited duration); people with specific training contracts;
- status in employment in main job is measured through the variable STAPRO of the EU-LFS. According to the criteria of economic risk and authority underlying ICSE-93, statuses can be: self-employed person with employees; self-employed person without employees; employee; family worker (unpaid);
- a standard employment relationship is defined as a job which is of continued duration, full-time, and implying a direct relationship between employer and employee.
Non-standard employment brings together different employment arrangements deviating from the those of the standard employment relationship. They may include temporary employment; part-time and on-call work; temporary agency work and other multiparty employment relationships; disguised employment and dependent self-employment; tele working and digital platform employment. Educational attainment refers to the highest level of education successfully completed. Educational levels are defined and classified according to the International Standard Classification of Education, 2011 version (ISCED 2011). Three main levels of educational attainment are studied: low (less than primary, primary and lower secondary education, equivalent to ISCED 2011 levels from 0 to 2), medium (upper secondary and post-secondary non-tertiary education, equivalent to ISCED 2011 levels 3 and 4) and high (tertiary education i.e., education provided by universities and other higher education institutions equivalent to ISCED 2011 levels from 5 to 8).
General education is defined as education programmes that are designed to develop learners' general knowledge, skills and competencies, as well as literacy and numeracy skills, often to prepare participants for more advanced education programmes at the same or a higher ISCED level and to lay the foundation for lifelong learning.
Vocational education is defined as education programmes that are designed for learners to acquire the knowledge, skills and competencies specific to a particular occupation, trade, or class of occupations or trades. Such programmes may have work-based components (e.g. apprenticeships, dual-system education programmes).
For more information about the distinction between general and vocational education, please consult paragraphs 53 to 55 of ISCED 2011.
Time series
Regulation (EU) 2019/1700 came into force on 1 January 2021 and induced a break in the LFS time series for several EU Member States. In order to monitor the evolution of employment and unemployment despite of the break in the time series, Member States assessed the impact of the break in their country and computed impact factors or break corrected data for a set of indicators. Break corrected data are published for the LFS main indicators.
More information on the LFS can be found via the online publication EU Labour Force Survey, which includes eight articles on the technical and methodological aspects of the survey. The EU-LFS methodology in force from the 2021 data collection onwards is described in methodology from 2021 onwards. Detailed information on coding lists, explanatory notes and classifications used over time can be found under documentation.
Additional methodological information
More information on the EU-LFS can be found via the online publication EU Labour Force Survey, which includes eight articles on the technical and methodological aspects of the survey. The EU-LFS methodology in force from the 2021 data collection onwards is described in methodology from 2021 onwards. Detailed information on coding lists, explanatory notes and classifications used over time can be found under documentation.
Context
Employment statistics can be used for a number of different analyses, including macroeconomic (looking at labour as a production factor), productivity or competitiveness studies. They can also be used to study a range of social and behavioural aspects related to an individual's employment situation, such as the social integration of minorities, or employment as a source of household income.
Employment is both a structural indicator and a short-term indicator. As a structural indicator, it may shed light on the structure of labour markets and economic systems, as measured through the balance of labour supply and demand, or the quality of employment. As a short-term indicator, employment follows the business cycle; however, it has limits in this respect, as employment is often referred to as a lagging indicator.
Employment statistics are at the heart of many EU policies. The European employment strategy (EES) was launched at the Luxembourg jobs summit in November 1997 and was revamped in 2005 to align the EU's employment strategy more closely to a set of revised Lisbon objectives, and in July 2008, employment policy guidelines for the period 2008–2010 were updated. In March 2010, the European Commission launched the Europe 2020 strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth; this was formally adopted by the European Council in June 2010. The European Council agreed on five headline targets, the first being to raise the employment rate for women and men aged 20 to 64 years old to 75% by 2020. EU Member States may set their own national targets in the light of these headline targets and draw up national reform programmes that include the actions they aim to undertake in order to implement the strategy.
The European Pillar of Social Rights has been jointly signed by the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission on 17 November 2017. Employment and social policies are the main fields of interest of the European Pillar of Social Rights, which is about delivering new and more effective rights for citizens. It has 3 main categories: (1) Equal opportunities and access to the labour market, (2) Fair working conditions and (3) Social protection and inclusion. In particular, today's more flexible working arrangements provide new job opportunities especially for the young but can potentially give rise to new precariousness and inequalities. Building a fairer Europe and strengthening its social dimension is a key priority for the Commission. The European Pillar of Social Rights is accompanied by a 'social scoreboard' which will monitor the implementation of the Pillar by tracking trends and performances across EU Member States in 12 areas and will feed into the European Semester of economic policy coordination. The scoreboard will also serve to assess progress towards a social 'triple A' for the EU as a whole.
At the Informal meeting of heads of state or government of 7-8 May 2021, EU leaders discussed on the implementation of the European pillar of social rights at EU and national level, as established by the EU strategic agenda 2019-2024. The action plan presented by the Commission in March 2021 provides guidance on the implementation of the European pillar of social rights, including in the areas of employment, skills and social protection. The action plan also sets three main targets to be achieved throughout the European Union by 2030:
- an employment rate of at least 78% in the EU;
- at least 60% of adults attending training courses every year;
- a reduction of at least 15 million in the number of people at risk of social exclusion or poverty.
For more information, see here.
Explore further
Other articles
Database
- LFS main indicators (lfsi)
- Employment and activity - LFS adjusted series (lfsi_emp)
- Unemployment - LFS adjusted series (une)
- Labour market transitions - LFS longitudinal data (lfsi_long)
- LFS series - Detailed quarterly survey results (from 1998 onwards) (lfsq)
- LFS series - Detailed annual survey results (lfsa)
- LFS series - Specific topics (lfst)
- LFS ad-hoc modules (lfso)
Thematic section
Publications
- Labour force survey in the EU, EFTA and candidate countries — Main characteristics of national surveys, 2021, 2024 edition
- Labour force survey in the EU, EFTA and candidate countries — Main characteristics of national surveys, 2020, 2022 edition
- Quality report of the European Union Labour Force Survey 2020, 2022 edition
- EU labour force survey — online publication
Selected datasets
- LFS main indicators (t_lfsi)
- Population, activity and inactivity - LFS adjusted series (t_lfsi_act)
- Employment - LFS adjusted series (t_lfsi_emp)
- Unemployment - LFS adjusted series (t_une)
- LFS series - Detailed annual survey results (t_lfsa)
- LFS series - Specific topics (t_lfst)
Methodology
Publications
- Labour force survey in the EU, EFTA and candidate countries — Main characteristics of national surveys, 2021, 2024 edition
- Labour force survey in the EU, EFTA and candidate countries — Main characteristics of national surveys, 2020, 2022 edition
- Quality report of the European Union Labour Force Survey 2020, 2022 edition
- EU labour force survey — online publication
ESMS metadata files and EU-LFS methodology
- Employment and unemployment (Labour Force Survey) (ESMS metadata file — employ_esms)
- LFS main indicators (ESMS metadata file — lfsi_esms)
- LFS series - detailed annual survey results (ESMS metadata file — lfsa_esms)
- LFS series - detailed quarterly survey results (from 1998 onwards) (ESMS metadata file — lfsq_esms)
- LFS regional series (ESMS metadata file — reg_lmk)
- LFS ad-hoc modules (ESMS metadata file — lfso_esms)