The project aims to analyse the working situation of young high-skilled workers, with the objective to support the transformation from precarious to stable working conditions.
More specifically, the project is divided into several phases:

1. Mapping European policies: research on policies to support workers with precarious jobs, run by local and national governments.

2. The field research
a) Quantitative analysis: development of a first set of hypotheses to be verified through interviews to key stakeholders. The focus will be a full understanding of relevance of not guaranteed employment in Europe in the last years, with a special attention to young high-skilled workers.
b) Qualitative analysis:
b1) Focus groups will be organized, involving the different stakeholders (representative of workers within enterprises, trade unions, agencies for staff recruitment, public decision makers, administrators involved in social and labour policies, etc).
b2) In depth interviews: about 30 key actors (skilled workers - men and women - employed with short-term contracts; people who has recently become unemployed, or accepted a low-skilled job) will be interviewed in each partner country (Italy, Spain, UK), for better understanding the transition periods between employment and unemployment, as well as the specific risks typical of these workers.

3. Development of recommendations: a report focusing on the proposed policy will be developed, to be customized and adapted to the current situation of the single countries. This will be also useful for exchanging innovative practice.

4. Dissemination, run at 3 different levels:
a) local, through seminars presenting the result of the research;
b) national, with a targeted dissemination towards key stakeholders. A national seminar will be organized in Spain and in the UK;
c) international, through the publication of articles in specialized journals, the participation in European conferences and the organization of an international seminar in Italy.

Researchers: Barbara Poggio, Annalisa Murgia, Alberto Zanutto, Lara Maestripieri (Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Trento, IT); IRS - Istituto per la Ricerca Sociale (Project Management, Milano, IT), Amitié (Bologna, IT), The Institute for Employment Studies (Brighton, UK), Centro de Estudios Económicos Tomillo S.L. (Madrid, ES)
Period: 2011-2012
Funding: EUROPEAN COMMISSION, Pilot project to encourage conversion of precarious work into work with rights (VP/2010/016)