Working conditions and sustainable work

During 2025, analysing the data collected in 2024 by the European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) is the main focus in the area of working conditions and sustainable work.

The high-quality EWCS 2024 data form the starting point for investigating – from the perspective of working conditions and job quality – the challenges arising from the combined impact of the four mega-drivers. This work is complemented by evidence on measures designed to address these challenges and improve working conditions. Such measures stem from public policies and legislation, the intervention of the social partners and practices at workplace level.

Topics of research include:

• Hybrid work: The hybrid workplace in the post-COVID-19 era and the challenges it poses for managers
• Working time: Developments in the aftermath of the pandemic
• Digital transition, job quality and workplace practices, including workers’ involvement in SMEs
• Vulnerable workers: Addressing the employment and working conditions of this group
• Platform work: Working conditions of online platform workers
• Telework and remote work: Impact on labour market access and on working conditions
• Artificial intelligence: Investigating the implications of AI and AI-enabling technologies for work organisation, employment, working conditions and social dialogue
• New forms of work: Impact of digitalisation on labour market trends and working conditions
• Sectoral and occupational change: Assessing the impact of the mega-drivers in selected sectors
• Caring for care services: Looking at working conditions and job quality in care services

The EWCS 2024 analysis explores the multiple dimensions of job quality and compares the situation in the Member States for different sectors, occupations and age groups and by gender.

 Barbara Gerstenberger, Head of the Working Life Unit

2025 marks the first year of the five-year period of the EU policy and legislative cycle for 2025–2029. Eurofound's work plan is aligned with the EU’s political guidelines over the next four years, directly feeding into a number of key policy areas aimed at improving job quality and creating inclusive labour markets.

Preserving and creating new jobs remains a priority for the EU. Eurofound’s EWCS 2024 provides comparative data on and unique insights into trends in the development of working conditions and job quality across the EU. This research helps policymakers to deliver on the promise of leaving no one behind when it comes to equal opportunities and access to the labour market, fair working conditions, and social protection and inclusion.

Analysis of working conditions in specific sectors, such as the care sector or sectors and occupations particularly affected by the twin transition, aims to assist decision-makers, including company-level actors, to take job quality into account when addressing labour shortages and changing skills requirements.

Evidence on the working conditions of workers in new forms of work aims to assist policymakers in understanding the specifics of this issue and offer recommendations for appropriate solutions for instance regarding working time regulation, remote work or the right to disconnect.

Research on the impact of technological change, and specifically the use of AI in the workplace, provides evidence to inform initiatives to regulate the use of AI in the workplace.

Eurofound’s work also informs policies that strive to reduce inequalities between and within countries, regions and local areas with the aim of fostering upward convergence.