The European Trade Union Institute

This paper presents the latest results of the European Job Quality Index, updated with 2021 data, and compares the relative performance of EU countries on the Index over time. 

Work-related psychosocial exposures are a major occupational hazard in European countries. They are highly prevalent, as shown in several studies based on the data from the European Working Conditions Surveys (Malard et al. 2013; Niedhammer et al. 2012). A large number of epidemiological studies have shown that psychosocial work exposures are associated with various health outcomes, especially cardiovascular diseases (Niedhammer et al. 2021) and mental disorders (Niedhammer et al. 2021). The etiological role of these exposures in these health outcomes has therefore been investigated in the literature and the scientific evidence is convincing.

This report presents results on psychosocial working conditions and health inequalities using data from the 2010 and 2015 European Working Conditions Surveys and the second wave of the 2020 Living, Working and Covid-19 survey. In brief, mean WHO-5 mental health scores declined between 2010 and 2020, indicating an increase in symptoms of depression during the pandemic.

This report provides an overview of the ways in which EU and EEA Member States have regulated the immigration of third-country nationals who enter their territory for the purpose of work. Its focus is on short-term migrant workers and it presents the results of an extensive mapping exercise carried out by national experts from 23 EU and two EEA countries in collaboration with the ETUI.

Long regarded as a magical material and widely used in countless applications, asbestos has turned out to be a health disaster. This powerful carcinogen is responsible for the deaths of around 90,000 people every year in Europe, and is recognised as the leading cause of death in the workplace. With the European Directive on asbestos at work currently under revision, HesaMag is devoting its special report to this deadly fibre. 

The multiple crises that the world is facing have diverse and unequal impacts on society at large. Uncertainty reigns as these crises continuously evolve in many different directions. The fast-paced change that we are experiencing challenges societal structures and triggers social unrest. Foresight and scenarios can be useful tools to improve our response to these crises from a long-term perspective.

This policy brief provides an overview of the proposed changes in the economic governance rules and an assessment from the perspective of whether they are likely to trigger a return to fiscal austerity and narrow the space for the public investment needed to tackle the policy challenges facing Europe.

This edited volume explores the need for a transformative approach to envisioning a just social and economic model. A cross-disciplinary team of academic experts was formed to develop this approach, with the aim of proposing concrete policy ideas that are both transformative and original. While these ideas should not be contingent on a revolutionary reconfiguration of the current relationship between capital and labour, they may lead to a radical rebalancing of power structures within societies.

The central questions and main contextual background explored by this year’s issue of Benchmarking are, at their core, fairly straightforward. Europe is at a crossroads, painfully navigating four transitions at once: a (perhaps less than obvious) economic policy transition best exemplified by the debates surrounding the EU economic governance framework (COM(2022) 583 final); a geopolitical transition, increasingly shaped by the ‘open strategic autonomy’ debate (Akgüç 2021) and, of course, by the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine; and the two more readily acknowledged green and digital transitions. It is, however, becoming increasingly clear, as explored in greater detail in the following chapters, that these four transitions imply important trade-offs and have significant ramifications for the social dimension of the European project and for the livelihoods of European workers. These consequences are currently being ignored by the principal institutional actors that are shaping them and that, at times, have conflicting priorities.