Industrial Relations in Europe 2012 - European Commission - Europa

In some cases this is linked to employment and welfare policies deliberately aimed at promoting
female participation in the labour market, as is the case in the Nordic countries. Nevertheless, a very
high female density can also be observed in the UK and in several Central and Eastern European
countries, such as the three Baltic countries, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, and Poland.
In most of the Mediterranean countries – Greece, Italy, Cyprus and Malta – this tendency is less
pronounced, although with differences between the education and the health and social work sector.
Part-time employment. A feature connected with the high female share of public sector employment
is the widespread use of part-time work, although with wide variations across countries and
between the three subsectors (Table 3.4). Looking at the public sector as a whole, only in eight out
of the 23 countries that provide relevant data is the percentage of part-time workers lower than in
the entire economy, including five Mediterranean countries (Portugal, Spain, Italy, Malta and
Greece), two Eastern European countries (Poland and Slovenia), and Finland, which, with its
modest 14%, is a peculiarity for a Nordic country. In all the remaining cases part-time work is more
widespread than in the entire economy, and in some countries markedly more so. At the top of this
ranking we find the Netherlands, with an astonishing 64% of part-timers. But also in many central
and northern European countries at least one out of three public sector employees has a part-time
job, including Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Germany, the UK, and, at a little distance, Austria and
Denmark. A comparative assessment of the weight of public sector employment on total
employment should therefore take into consideration these differences.
Variations across subsectors are also very relevant. The incidence of part-timers is predictably
lower in the public administration, defence and social security sector, given the roles and
occupations prevailing in these activities. In effect, in all the countries that provide data, with the
only exception of Slovakia and Hungary, the percentage of part-time work is systematically and
notably smaller than in the public sector as a whole, in several cases even less than half (Norway,
Finland, Denmark, Poland, Ireland, Spain, Greece, Czech Republic). Likewise predictable, for the
same reasons, is the higher incidence of part-timers in the education, health and social work sectors,
especially in the latter sector. A sort of polarisation between countries is, however, observable. At
one extreme, in a country like the Netherlands, these sectors appear to be the real reign of part-time
workers, as these employees represent by a large margin the absolute majority, with respectively six
and almost eight units of personnel out of every 10. But, this outlier apart, in another group of
countries the incidence of part-time work is also very significant, close to, or above, respectively
30% and 40% of the workforce. This group contains all the Nordic countries (with the exception of
Denmark and Finland) Germany, Austria, Belgium, and the UK. At the opposite pole, however,
there are countries where the percentage of part-timers is surprisingly low even in these activities –
it is below, and in some cases largely below, 10%. These countries are Greece, Portugal, Slovakia,
Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Slovenia and partly Latvia, Cyprus and the Czech Republic. The line
of division is apparently between central and northern European countries on the one hand, and
southern and eastern European countries on the other hand.
Part-time employment increased between 2008 and 2011 in most countries where data are available.
While in many cases there is apparently still a large margin for a greater use of part-time work, in
some countries its presence is so high that there seems to be little room for any further, significant
increase.
Finally, in all countries part-time work in the public sector is mostly, and in some cases almost
exclusively, a female phenomenon, especially in the education, health and social work activities,
where women are often 90% of all part-timers, or even more (Table 3.5).
Temporary employment. The incidence of temporary employment in the public sector as a whole
varies strongly across EU countries, ranging in 2011 from around 7-8% in the UK, Luxembourg,
and Greece to more than 20% in Spain, Portugal and Finland (Table 3.6). This reflects more general
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