Working Conditions in Europe – What Workers Say

By European Foundation for the Improvement in Living and Working Conditions

European workers are satisfied with their working conditions, mainly on account of improved job security, a positive working atmosphere and good opportunities to learn and develop, the first findings of the fourth European Working Conditions Survey indicate.

However, working conditions vary considerably between individual Member States, between the 'old' and 'new' Member States and also between sectors and women and men in different age groups.

The services sector continues to grow in importance on the European labour market, employing around 66% of workers in the 25 EU Member States and in Bulgaria and Romania, the two EU acceding countries. The percentage of workers employed in both manufacturing and agriculture continues to decline: manufacturing now accounts for 29% of employment and agriculture just 5%. The proportion of workers who use computers at least a quarter of the time in Europe has increased from 31% in 1991 to 47% in 2005. There is still a large proportion of EU workers who do not use computers in their work at all (44%). In this respect, the difference between workers who never use computers in the former EU15 countries (42%) and the ten new Member States (60%) is striking.

'These first results from the European Working Conditions survey show that although there is real scope for increasing productivity in Europe, policy-makers are continuously challenged to reach the goals of improved employment levels and quality of work as laid out in the Lisbon criteria,' says Jorma Karppinen, the Foundation's Director. 'A majority of European workers report that work is interesting and offers new opportunities to learn, but access to training has not increased, particularly not among older workers, which indicates a lack of lifelong learning'.

Communiqué November 2006