A new ILO working paper explores how international labour standards can help guide the responsible use of artificial intelligence in the workplace, while identifying emerging challenges for workers' rights.

Changes to working time arrangements across the EU in 2025 reflect the diversity of national industrial relations systems and the levels at which social dialogue takes place. This article analyses the discourse and developments in 2025 regarding overtime, time recording, annual leave and working time reduction.

Algorithmic management – measured in this report as whether employees are subject to the use of computer programs to monitor performance, allocate tasks and schedule work – is an important feature of workplace digitalisation. Drawing on Eurofound’s European Working Conditions Survey 2024 [10], this report provides a snapshot of the prevalence of algorithmic management in European workplaces and investigates how it is reshaping work and affecting working conditions and employees’ well-being. The analysis shows that the use of algorithmic management varies significantly by sector and occupation. Employees subject to algorithmic management report higher job demands, especially quantitative demands (which indicate work intensity), and are more likely to experience job strain than employees who are not subject to algorithmic management. Among the three functions examined, performance monitoring is most strongly associated with poorer health and well-being outcomes and exacerbates the adverse effects of job strain in already strained jobs.

Warnings of widespread disruption to the economy, labour, and productivity driven by artificial intelligence (AI) are growing, even as immediate job displacement is not yet reflected in aggregate data. This gap between prediction and available evidence should compel the EU to build systematic evidence of AI’s impact on the labour market, preparing for drastic scenarios and for the “messy middle” of patchy transformation alike.

From unpaid work to the informal economy, new international statistical standards are helping capture a more complete picture of the world of work. Through concrete examples, we look at what these standards allow us to see and understand that conventional labour statistics could not.

The proportion of employees involuntarily on temporary and part-time contracts has declined across the EU since 2015. The rate, however, remains high in southern Europe and is increasingly concentrated in a few service sectors. The employees on these contracts are mainly women and young workers. 

This study provides information allowing for an assessment of the representativeness of the organisations involved in the European sectoral social dialogue committee for the railway sector. Their relative representativeness legitimises their right to be consulted and their capacity to negotiate agreements. The aim of Eurofound’s studies on representativeness is to identify the relevant national and European social partner organisations in the sector. This study identifies the European Transport Workers’ Federation, representing employees, and the Community of European Railway and Infrastructure Companies, with added representativeness from the European Rail Infrastructure Managers, representing employers, as the most representative European-level social partner organisations in the railway sector.

A new ILO Brief examines how labour standards and responsible business expectations are increasingly shaping market access, supply chains and business competitiveness in Asia and the Pacific. It highlights the role of employer and business membership organizations in helping companies navigate evolving requirements and promote better labour outcomes.

This study provides information allowing for an assessment of the representativeness of the organisations involved in the European sectoral social dialogue committee for the personal services (hair and beauty) sector. Their relative representativeness legitimises their right to be consulted and their capacity to negotiate agreements. The aim of Eurofound’s studies on representativeness is to identify the relevant national and European social partner organisations in the sector. This study identifies UNI Europa Hair & Beauty, representing workers, and Coiffure EU, representing employers, as the most representative European-level social partner organisations in the personal services sector.

The approach of EU governments towards minimum wages started to change from the turn of the century and national minimum wages have risen sharply, particularly since the mid-2010s, becoming more binding and shaping wage dynamics more broadly. Drawing on recent Eurofound research, this policy brief examines how national minimum wage increases may affect employees’ pay levels, wage inequality, collective bargaining and the wider employment structure. Findings show sizeable knock-on effects along the wage distribution, a compression of wage inequality at the bottom (especially following large hikes in national minimum wages), a narrowing gap with collectively agreed wage floors, and an association with a shift towards higher-paid jobs in the employment structure. However, a national minimum wage should not be seen as a standalone solution to poverty or broader inequalities, while its possible disemployment effects also need to be considered.