One-fifth (20.3%) of employees born outside the EU were employed on a temporary contract in the EU in 2020, compared with 13.8% for temporary employees born in a different EU Member State and 11.8% for native-born employees with a temporary job.

Compared with 2019, the shares in 2020 were 1.5 percentage points (pp) lower for temporary employees born outside the EU, 1.4 pp lower for employees born in another EU Member State and 1.2 pp lower for native-born employees.

Across the EU Member States for which the results are available, in 2020 the highest share of employees born outside the EU employed on temporary contracts was recorded in Poland (40.6%), followed by Cyprus (35.8%), Spain (35.1%), Portugal (26.8%) and Sweden (25.2%). By contrast, the lowest share was observed in Estonia (2.1%), followed by Austria (6.9%), Hungary (7.2%) and Ireland (7.5%).

For persons born in another EU Member State, the highest share of temporary employees in the total number of employees was recorded in Spain (27.0%), followed, by the Netherlands (19.3%) and Italy (18.3%). At the opposite end of the scale, the lowest shares of employees with a temporary job were in Hungary (4.2%), Ireland (6.6%), Luxembourg (6.8%), Austria (7.2%), Cyprus (7.3%) and Slovenia (8.4%).

The share of temporary employees in the total number of native-born employees was the highest in Spain (21.8%), followed by Poland (17.9%) and Portugal (16.6%). By contrast, the lowest shares were in Lithuania (1.1%), Romania (1.2%), Estonia (2.6%), Latvia (2.7%) and Bulgaria (3.5%).

Source dataset: lfsa_etpgacob

Women more likely to be employed on temporary contracts

In 2020, the share of temporary employees in the total number of employees in the EU was higher among women than men for all three subpopulations: native-born employees, employees born in another EU Member State, and employees born outside the EU.

The largest gender gap was for native-born employees, the share of female employees working on a temporary basis was 1.9 pp higher than those for men. The gap between the sexes was smaller for employees born in another EU Member State and for those non-EU- born (both 0.5 pp).

Source dataset: lfsa_etpgacob

For more information:

• Statistics Explained article on migrant integration statistics – employment conditions
• Eurostat website section dedicated to migrant integration
• Eurostat database of migrant integration statistics
• Germany special note: Since the first quarter of 2020, the Labour Force Survey (LFS) has been integrated into the newly designed German micro census as a subsample. For the LFS, technical issues and the COVID-19 crisis have had a large impact on the data collection processes, resulting in low response rates and a biased sample.

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