Working Conditions for Migrants in the EU: What Eurostat Data Shows

If you have moved to an EU country for work, the employment conditions you encounter may differ from those of nationals. Eurostat's EU Labour Force Survey - covering the 27 EU member states - tracks three indicators for employees aged 20-64: temporary contracts, part-time employment, and self-employment. Here is what the 2025 data shows.

Temporary Contracts Are More Common for Non-EU Workers

In 2025, 22.1% of non-EU citizen employees held a temporary contract, compared with 12.4% for citizens of other EU countries and 10.7% for nationals. This gap has been a consistent feature of the EU labour market since 2005, though all three groups reached their lowest levels on record in 2025.

When the data is broken down by migration background, foreign-born employees had a 16.1% temporary contract rate. Native-born employees with both parents born abroad recorded 15.9%, those with 1 parent born abroad recorded 13.6%, and native-born employees with 2 native-born parents recorded 10.2%.

The gap is considerably wider in some countries: in Cyprus, the Netherlands and Poland, the share of non-EU citizens on temporary contracts exceeded 40%. Among countries with available data for all migration background groups, the greatest variability was found in Italy, followed by Spain and Portugal.

Part-Time Employment: Also Higher Among Non-Nationals

Part-time work follows a similar pattern. In 2025, 21.8% of non-EU citizen employees worked part-time, against 20.0% for citizens of other EU countries and 16.6% for nationals. The share declined across all three groups in recent years, most notably among non-EU citizens.

By migration background, the highest part-time rate was recorded among native-born with 2 parents born abroad at 23.6%, followed by native-born with 1 parent born abroad at 23.4%, foreign-born at 21.1%, and native-born with 2 native-born parents at the lowest rate of 15.6%.

Country differences are significant. Based on available data, the largest disparities between citizenship groups in part-time employment were recorded in the Netherlands, followed by Finland and France. For migration background groups, the largest disparities appeared in Spain, Ireland and Denmark.

Self-Employment: Lower Rates for Non-EU Citizens

Self-employment is less common among non-nationals. In 2025, nationals had the highest self-employment share at 13.5%, followed by citizens of other EU countries at 10.9% and non-EU citizens at 10.1%. The share among nationals followed a slight downward trend, reaching its lowest point in 2023 and remaining stable through 2025.

By migration background, native-born with 2 native-born parents recorded the highest rate at 13.8%, while native-born with both parents born abroad recorded the lowest at 9.3%. Country variation is wide: in Greece, native-born with 2 native-born parents recorded 25.5%, while native-born with 2 foreign-born parents recorded 4.1% - a gap recorded in the same survey data.

At EU level, self-employment was consistently higher among men than women across all citizenship groups.

How the Destination Country Shapes the Picture

The EU-level averages are aggregated across 27 member states, and country results vary considerably. For self-employment, nationals in Greece and Italy recorded particularly high shares, while citizens of other EU countries showed the highest shares in Croatia and Portugal.

For temporary contracts, variability between migration background groups was greatest in Italy, followed by Spain and Portugal. For part-time work, the widest gaps by citizenship group appeared in the Netherlands, Finland and France, while the widest gaps by migration background were in Spain, Ireland and Denmark.

Gender Differences Within Each Group

Women recorded higher shares of temporary contracts than men in 2025 across all citizenship groups. The same pattern held across all migration background categories - female employees had higher temporary contract rates than male employees regardless of migration status.

Part-time employment shows a starker divide. Women had considerably higher shares of part-time work than men across all citizenship groups, a pattern that also held regardless of migration background. Among men, the highest part-time rate by migration background was recorded among native-born with 1 parent born abroad. For self-employment, men recorded higher shares than women across all citizenship groups at EU level.

Source: Eurostat, EU Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS).