in-cyprus 12 May 2020 -Bouli Hadjioannou
In 2019, 2.3% of employees in the European Union (EU) aged 20-64 had a precarious job, meaning that their work contract did not exceed three months’ duration, according to data released by Eurostat, the statistical service of the EU.
According to Eurostat, the share of precarious employment, as a percentage of total employment, has remained relatively stable over the past decade, ranging from a low of 2.3% in 2009 to a high of 2.5% during the period 2015-2017.
In Cyprus this rate was 0.3%, but Eurostat puts a low reliability warning on this figure. In 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018, the rate was 0.7%, 0.7%, 0.6% and 0.5% respectively.
Eurostat states that employees in the agriculture, forestry and fishing sector had the highest share of precarious work contracts, at 7.5% in 2019.
This was followed by the wholesale and retail trade, transport, accommodation and food service activities sector (2.8%) and the and the sector of the other service activities and the activities of households as employers (2.4%).
Between 2014 and 2019, most economic activities displayed seasonal fluctuations, however at different magnitudes. Overall, the third quarter had the highest number of employees with precarious jobs.
Among all economic activities, the wholesale, retail trade, transport, accommodation and food service activities sector represented the sharpest fluctuations in the number of employees who had precarious jobs, with an average increase of 30% from the second to the third quarter.
Among the EU Member States, Croatia has had one of the highest shares of precarious employment since 2012. However, since its peak in 2016 (8.0%) this share has been gradually decreasing, reaching 5.8% in 2019.
Other EU countries reporting the highest shares of precarious employment in 2019 were France (5.0%), Spain (3.8), Belgium (3.6%), and Italy (3.4%).
At the other end of the scale, Czechia and Romania recorded the lowest share of precarious employment (both 0.2%)
(CNA)
