Norway
The government is providing funding for a project aiming to reduce the amount of involuntary part-time worker in the health sector. Unions and employers have signed an agreement to investigate the extent of part-time employment and ways of reorganizing work to allow more part timers to switch to full-time contracts.
Read more at > EIRO (EN)
The latest survey on fixed-term employment by the European statistics agency, Eurostat, shows a growth in involuntary fixed-term work for both men and women across all sectors. In health and social services 6.1% of women were involuntarily on fixed-term contracts in 2005, up from 5.3% in 2000. The corresponding figures for men were 5.9% and 5.4%. Women in health and social work now account for the largest proportion - 15.3% - of all women working involuntarily on fixed term contracts. [Read more at > Eurostat (EN, FR, DE)-> http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page?_pageid=1073,46587259&
Three unions - Fagforbundet, NSF and Delta - with a combined total membership of 560000, are joining forces to address the continuing problem of part-time work in health and social care. The unions say that around two-thirds of workers in the sector, employed mainly by municipalities - are on part-time contracts. This is a problem for many workers, making it difficult to make ends meet. The unions argue that the problem has been recognised at national level and some municipalities have taken action but they say the government needs to ensure that municipalities have the funding so that they
