An economic downturn or recession may result primarily in layoffs of employees with short-term contracts, who are often younger and less experienced workers. When an economy begins a period of expansion, businesses may wish to avert risk and keep costs down, at least initially, by cautiously hiring workers on shortterm contracts. In the aggregate, the decisions of companies regarding their employees during the business cycle depend on the economic structure, product/service demand and prices in the output market, as well as labour supply. Main variables in the EU-LFS with connection to the indicator: • STAPRO (2 = "Self-employed without employees", 3 = "Employee") • TEMP (2 = "employee has temporary job/work contract of limited duration) The LFS EU-LFS does not include the required information about short-term work or instability of work.