The hangover from the economic crisis that engulfed Europe nearly a decade ago is lingering. Unemployment ballooned, hitting Southern Europe particularly hard and peaking at a eurozone average of 12 percent in mid-2013. Since then, unemployment has gradually receded, slipping to 9.5 percent in the eurozone in February. But the numbers do not tell the entire story. The kinds of jobs many people are finding are now more often ones that do not offer long-term security.
About 6 in 10 jobs in the European Union today are full-time permanent positions. But jobs offered under part-time and temporary contracts account for an increasing share of total employment. In 2003, well before the crisis, 15 percent of the European Union's workers were employed under part-time contracts. By 2015, that had risen to 19 percent. During the same period, temporary contracts rose from 9 percent of total employment to 11 percent. Temporary jobs offer...
