Nearly 20 % of EU employees report being monitored by a computer programme, 18 % report being allocated their tasks by a computer and 10 % say that it determines their working hours.

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.

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.

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.