Sixth European Working Conditions Survey: 2015

Eurofound will carry out its sixth European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) in 2015. 

In cooperation with Ipsos, Eurofound will interview more than 43,000 workers in 35 different European countries for the sixth edition of the survey. The face-to-face interviews are carried out in peoples' homes and cover a comprehensive list of questions on individual's working conditions. All the information gathered is treated in the strictest confidentiality and the anonymity of each interviewee is guaranteed. The survey targets working people who are randomly selected from a statistical sample, comprising a cross-section of society, ranging from 1,000 to 3,300 people in each country.

The survey explores quality of work issues and provides information on exposure to physical and psychosocial risks, working time duration and organisation, employment status and contract, place of work, work organisation, work life balance and spillover between work and life outside work, training and learning at work, voice at the workplace, health and well-being as well as earnings. This sixth wave of the survey is an important landmark for Eurofound because it will build on the lessons learned from the previous five surveys and will provide a rich portrait of workplace trends in Europe over the last 25 years.

To date, Eurofound has carried out five European working conditions surveys (1991, 1995, 2000/2001, 2005 and 2010). The evolution of the EWCS follows the changes in the composition of the EU itself over the last 25 years. In 1991, the survey covered just 12 countries; 15 in 1995 and 16 in 2000 (EU15 and Norway). The 2000 survey was extended in 2001 to cover the 10 EU membership candidate countries. The fourth survey, carried out in 2005, covered all 27 EU Member States plus Croatia, Turkey, Switzerland and Norway while the fifth survey covered the same countries, apart from Switzerland, but with the addition of Albania, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina - a total of 34 countries

The sixth survey shall include the 28 EU Member States, the five EU candidate countries (Albania, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Turkey), as well as Switzerland and Norway: a total of 35 countries, making this wave the most comprehensive one so far, in terms of numbers of countries covered. The first results of the sixth European Working Conditions Survey will be made available before the end of 2015.

For further information about the European Working Conditions Surveys, contact Sophia MacGoris at smg@eurofound.europa.eu.