Joint ECE/ILO/Eurostat Seminar on the Quality of Work - Geneva, 11th-13th May 2005

The growth of atypical jobs in the Italian labour market

By Francesca Ceccato and Leonello Tronti (Istat)

Topics of the presentation

• We assume the presence of a measurement problem, rising from the increasing share and relevance of atypical jobs.

• Therefore, we present a new conceptual scheme for classifying employment arrangements, and we clarify its characteristics in the face of other attempts in the same direction.

Topics of the presentation

• Then, we show an application of the conceptual scheme to classify atypical working arrangements in the Italian labour market by 2003.

• Finally, we present some evidences: on the relevance of atypical jobs in the Italian labour market in the benchmark year (2001); on the changes in the levels of atypical jobs in Italy, in the periods 1996-2003, according to the main available sources and to the proposed classification.

Suggestions for a conceptual scheme to

classify non-standard employment

arrangements

Why a new scheme?

• The diffusion of new labour contracts and employment arrangements, characterised by higher flexibility and reduced social rights, poses a relevant measurement problem.

• Official statisticians feel increasingly the need to reconsider the common definitions of legal employment arrangements and to propose new classifications, allowing for more realistic and analytical measurements.

The conceptual scheme

Three criteria to define non-standard employment arrangements

• job stability (permanent vs. temporary),

• working time regime (full-time vs. reduced time),

• degree of social rights entitlement (full vs. partial or none).

A conceptual scheme to classify non-standard employment arrangements (three dimensions)

  

Job stability Working-time

regime Full Partial or None

Permanent Full-time

Reduced

Temporary Full-time

Reduced

Social Rights Entitlement

Characteristics of the proposed classification

• The classification considers primarily legal employment arrangements (the labour contracts and the working regimes defined by them) the same kind of legal labour contract can allow for different working-time regimes and also for different stability patterns.

• Thus, the purpose of the grid is not to classify jobs nor occupations according to their intrinsic quality, with respect to their organisational role (e.g. responsibility, autonomy, risk-bearing etc.: see ICSE 93, Hoffmann 2002).

Characteristics of the proposed classification

• It is not even aimed at synthesising the results of a detailed analysis of the organisational aspects involved in the operation of post-fordist production systems (e.g., core/contingent workers, subcontracting chains and the like: see Boyer 1994, OECD 2002).

• Finally, it is neither aimed at classifying the level of distress attached to each legal working arrangement, and therefore it is not a classification of undeclared work or precarious work (e.g., the area covered by the ESOPE Network).

Characteristics of the proposed classification

• Our classification is very simple and general, and is primarily aimed at measuring the level and changes of atypical work arrangements in one country.

• Nevertheless, if combined with other information (e.g. wages, family conditions, firm characteristics etc.) it can also be used for analysing both the quality of work, post-fordist organisations and the level of distress attached to atypical jobs.

• Moreover, our classification can be used also with the aim of providing international comparative measurements of the extent and growth pattern of atypical work – once accepted that the degree of social rights entitlement typical of the “standard job arrangement” (open-ended, full-time dependent employment) may vary from country to country.

Characteristics of the proposed classification

Non-Standard Employment Arrangements in Italy

Applying the classification scheme: the case of Italy

• The scheme can be used to classify both employee and self-employed kinds of work arrangements

• It may also prove useful to add to the main three dimensions a fourth criterion, the ‘degree of atypicalness’:

- ‘strictly atypical’ if the contract type which in itself is very far from the standard contract (e.g. agency working, youth work-and-training, fixed term working,…)

- ‘partly atypical’ if the employment arrangement is organised by labour contracts similar to the standard one but by peculiarities in the way the work is performed (location, duration,...) (e.g. seasonal working or homeworking, teleworking, …),

The case of Italy in 2003

• If the four dimensions are considered together, the classification identifies the presence of 22 different non-standard labour contracts.

• These can be organised into 48 different atypical employment arrangements.

• Of these last, 35 can be defined as ‘strictly atypical’ and the remaining 13 as ‘partly atypical’.

Number of non-standard working arrangements according to the conceptual scheme – Year 2003

Full (*) Partial or None (*)

Permanent Full-time 4 2 -

Reduced 8 3 -

Temporary Full-time 7 3 8 1

Reduced 9 3 12 1(a) For the sake simplicity here we are considering only social security rights.(*) 'Partly atypical' employment arrangements on a grey background are already included in the other three criteria.

Social Rights Entitlement (a)Working-time regime

Job stability

-agency working

-staff-leasing

-homeworking

-teleworking

-agency working -job sharing

-staff-leasing -permanent employees working part-time

-external solidarity contracts -homeworking

-intermittent working -teleworking

-agency working -homeworking

-staff-leasing -seasonal working

-youth work-and-training contracts -teleworking

-fixed term employees

-agency working -fixed term employees working part-time

-staff-leasing -homeworking

-intermittent working -seasonal working

-youth work-and-training contracts -teleworking

-job sharing

-work insertion contracts -co-ordinated, long term freelance contracts

-summer paid training contracts -occasional freelance contracts

-unpaid internship -partner workers

-apprenticeship -project freelance contracts

-work insertion contracts –co-ordinated, long-term freelance contracts

-summer paid training contract –occasional freelance contracts

-socially useful projects –partner workers

-public utility projects –project freelance contracts

-vocational insertion plans –secondary jobs

-apprenticeship

Measuring atypical work in Italyin the benchmark year (2001)

Total number of atypical working positions

Absolute values

Percentage shares in total registered jobs (a)

A) By job stabilityPermanent 1,497,189 * 6.1Temporary 2,285,915 * 9.3

B) By working-time regimeFull-time 1,691,192 * 6.9Reduced 2,091,912 * 8.5

C) By degree of atypicalnessStrictly atypical 1,838,743 7.5Partly atypical 1,944,361 7.9

D) By social rights entitlementFull 2,328,976 9.5Partial or none 1,454,128 5.9

TOTAL 3,783,104 15.4

(a) Total registered jobs surveyed in 2001 by the National Accounts, Istat. * These levels are biased by the unshared amount out the modalities of the criteria.

The growth of atypical jobs in Italy: 1996-2003

Data Sources:

• ISTAT – OROS (Employment, Wages and Social Security Contributions) survey

• ISTAT - National Account• ISTAT - Labour Force Survey • Ministry of Labour and Social Policies -

Monitoring report

Target population:

• Employee jobs in industry and private services (sections C to K of NACE Rev.1 classification)

The growth of non-standard employee jobs in the non-agricultural private sector (a) - Years 1996-

2003

90

100

110

120

130

140

150

160

1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003

Non-standardemployee jobs

All registeredemployee jobs

indices 1996=100

In the 1996-2003 period: (in the non-agricultural private sector)

• Wage employment grew by almost 1,7 million registered jobs, at an avarage annual rate of 2.5%

• Non-standard registered jobs increased by 870 thousands, at the rate of 6.4% per year

• In other words, the growth of atypical work accounted for a 52% share of the additional jobs in the period.

Employee Jobs in the non-agricultural private sector by non-standard categories - Years 2002

and 2003

Absolute value

Share Absolute value

Share

Standard 7,661,518 76.6 7,842,504 76.1 2.4 1.5

Non standard 2,337,327 23.4 2,460,101 23.9 5.3 6.4

Strictly atypical 836,595 8.4 832,055 8.1 -0.5 2.3

Partly atypical 1,500,732 15.0 1,628,046 15.8 8.5 9.2

Total 9,998,845 100.0 10,302,605 100.0 3.0 2.5

Annual average percentage

change 1996-2003

EMPLOYMENT ARRANGEMENTS

2002 2003 Percentage change

2002-2003

To sum up...

With reference to employment in sections C to K:

• continuing increase of total employees in C-K: wage employment increased by 3% in 2002-2003, in comparison with an average 2.5% in 1996-2003

• the main increase is due to standard employment, that represents the 76.1% of the total wage employment (2.4%, accounts for 1.8% of the total increase), in comparison with the increase of non-standard employment that refers to the 23.9% of the total wage employment (5.3%, accounts for 1.2% of the total)

• non-standard employee jobs rose to over 2.4 millions in 2003. Adding all long-term freelancers (Co.Co.Co.), among the self-employed, the total number of atypical job came over 3 millions.

Employee jobs in the non-agricultural private sector by degree of atypicalness, job stability and working time regime – Years 1996-2003 and 2002-2003 (percentage changes)

Total number of atypical working positions Annual average change (%) 1996-2003

A) By job stabilityPermanent 9.5 12.0 *Temporary 4.1 -0.1 *

B) By working-time regimeFull-time 0.6 -0.9 *Reduced 10.1 8.7 *

C) By degree of atypicalnessStrictly atypical 2.3 -0.5Partly atypical 9.2 8.5

TOTAL 6.4 5.3* These levels are biased by the unshared amount out the modalities of the criteria.

Change (%) 2002-2003

To sum up…

With reference to employment in sections C to K:

• Between 2002 and 2003, permanent atypical jobs rose by 12%, mainly due to the increase in part-time (12.3%) - confirming the gradual increase noted between 1996-2003.

• Temporary jobs decreased in 2003 by 0.1%, mainly due to the decrease in work-and-training contracts (-16.5%) and temporary homeworking (-52.4%) - changes are opposite to the ones observed between 1996 and 2003, characterised by a strong increase (+4.1%) in temporary jobs (due to fixed-term jobs +6.2% and apprenticeship jobs +8.4%).

• Between 2002 and 2003, non-standard jobs increased by 5.3%, mainly due to ‘partly atypical’ employment arrangements (8.5%), whereas the ‘strictly atypical’ ones decreased by -0.5% - youth work-and-training contracts (CFL) collapsed by -16.5%.

Employee jobs in industry and private services by degree of atypicalness, job stability and working time regime – Years 1996-2003 (percentage changes)

Total

Full-time Part-time Permanent Temporary

Non-standard -0.9 8.7 12.0 -0.1 5.3 *Strictly atypical -4.4 4.0 104.6 -0.6 -0.5 *Partly atypical 5.3 9.3 12.0 0.8 8.5

Non-standard 0.6 10.1 9.5 4.1 6.4 *Strictly atypical -1.0 4.8 57.1 2.3 2.3 *Partly atypical 3.8 10.9 9.5 8.2 9.2

Annual average percentage change 1996-2003

*Total change includes Agency workers that couldn't be divided among working time choices.

DEGREE OF ATYPICALNESS

Working time Stability of work relation

Percentage change 2002-2003

Changes of jobs in industry and services -

Years 1996-2003

•Job stability: permanent employment arrangements increased by 12% in 2002-2003 while the temporary ones decreased by -0.1%. In the Italian case, the increase in non-standard employment arrangements has not been caused by the creation of completely new contracts, but rather by the introduction of changes into the traditional ways or arrangements in which people were working.

•Working time regime: a significantly high increase in the reduced-time regime jobs (+8.7% between 2002 and 2003, due to the increase in part-time by +9.3%), that could more than counter the decrease of full-time jobs (-0.9%, due to the collapse in Youth work-and-training by -17.6% and to the deceleration in fixed-term employees +3% between 2002 and 2003, in comparison to the 6.1% in 1996-2003).

•Degree of atypicalness: a robust increase in the partly atypical jobs (+8.5% between 2002 and 2003, due to the increase in part-timer jobs), in the face of a decrease in strictly atypical jobs (-0.5%, due to the continuing decrease in Youth work-and-training contracts).

•Social rights entitlement: to quantify jobs with respect to this criterion the

available sources need to be reconciled according to the survey unit.