Occupational safety and health in Europe - state and trends 2023 
European Agency for Safety and Health at Work – EU-OSHA 48 
The quantitative amount of other non -standard types of work often is not well statistically monitored 
but based on estimates. There are several difficulties to generate reliable statistical data: many of these 
types of work are less regular, they can be below the level of notification obligations or fully undeclared, 
obligations for statistical notification are not issued or not followed, and/or these types of work are done 
in parallel together with other forms of work or income. The OECD estimates that the group with the 
highest share of these types of work are pensioners who perform such work as a second job.67  
A special case of contract types are posted and seasonal workers 68 in the EU. Their numbers have 
been estimated, for example, in annual reports on ‘Labour mobility’.69  
Table 8: Posted and seasonal workers – Eurostat  
 
Regarding posted workers a recently published report shows the diversity of working conditions, a low 
availably of data and the high risk of infringements. 70  
Concerning seasonal workers several deficits of OSH were made public, particularly during the COVID-
19 pandemic. The European Commission guidance on ‘Seasonal workers’ states:71   
‘… due to the nature of their work, seasonal workers are often more vulnerable than other workers to 
situations such as precarious working and living conditions, infringement of labour law, inadequate social 
security coverage, as well as undeclared work. Practices that ensure that employers and workers are 
provided with correct information and assistance can prevent or address these issues.’  
Overall, the OECD estimates that the quantitative amount of all types of non-standard work is more 
than 30%  of employment: ‘All types of non- standard work combined, non- standard employment 
accounts for more than one-third of employment in OECD countries.’72  
The OECD also estimates that in 2019 the new forms of non-standard work account for 0.5% to 3% 
of total employment. 73 They highlight the change from traditional non- standard work to new forms:  
‘Non-standard work is undergoing substantive transformation. In recent years, the decline of some types 
of self-employment including in agriculture has been partly offset by the emergence and expansion of 
new forms of non-standard work, in particular jobs relying on new technologies, such as platform-based 
taxi-like drivers. While today this type of work accounts for only 0.5-3% of total employment in developed 
countries, it is of considerable importance for young people who rely on new forms of work more 
frequently than older generations and some of whom seem to set a higher value on work autonomy.’ 74 
The extrapolation of these OECD estimates to the EU27 indicates that the amount of new forms of 
non-standard work (i.e. beyond temporary contract or part-time) would be in a range between 1 million 
and 6 million persons in the EU27. 
Eurofound distinguishes in its 2020 report on ‘New forms of employment’75 between nine different types: 
ICT-based Mobile work, Platform work, Casual work, Employee sharing, Job sharing, Voucher -based 
work, Collaborative employment, Interim management and Portfolio work. They report several estimates 
about the scale of these types of work per Member State but they do not present final quantitative 
estimates for the EU level.  
Obviously, as the term ‘non- standard’ already indicates, these types of work and their consequences 
are much less documented and less visible than regular  forms of employment. To gain a better 
quantitative picture of the safety and health situation under such working conditions based on 
administrative data, advanced administrative and research efforts would be necessary,76 for example, 
a strong collaboration between labour inspections (and other OSH authorities) and those authorities that