Portugal has 2nd most precarious contracts rate in the EU

Portugal has overtaken Spain and Italy to become the country in the European Union with the 2nd most precarious labour contacts.

According to Eurostat, the EU’s statistics agency, in 2022 Portugal had been in fourth position, with 16.6% of all contracts being precarious, but now Portugal is in second place having overtaken Spain with only the Netherlands with a higher percentage of precarious contracts (27.2%) according to calculations made by business daily Negócios.
The fact that Portugal had overtaken Spain can be partly explained by the fact that the number of precarious contracts had fallen in Spain last year, but also marginally down to the use of a different method of calculation related to the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, Eurostat emphasised that even factoring in a different method of calculation, the differences with Spain were “insignificant”.
The Netherlands had the highest percentage of precarious contacts, followed by Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, and Finland; all above 15%.
The countries with the least precarious contracts were Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria, Estonia, and Slovakia with values below 5%.
The EU average for precarious contracts last year was 14.4% for the Euro Zone and 13.4% for the European Union.