Precarious employment affects 950,000 people in Portugal
There were 90,000 new precarious employment contracts in 2017 in Portugal. Non-permanent contracts rose by 10% in 2017, in comparison to 2016, according to the data from Social Security.
Employment rates in Portugal have increased in 2017 – but mostly resorting to precarious employment conditions. Amongst the 125,000 new contracts celebrated in the private sector in the country, over 90,000 were non-permanent contracts, according to the data released by the Social Security Office via one of the most read newspapers in Portugal, Correio da Manhã.
71,190 new fixed-term contracts were made that year, and near to 19,000 were open-end contracts. Both typologies are part of the “non-permanent” term and need a justification for the contract to be signed, according to that newspaper.
The total of salaried workers in the country that year reached near to 2.7 million people, 65% of which have non-permanent contracts — meaning that 1.8 million people have non-permanent contracts.
In comparison to 2016, the number of people employed with non-permanent contracts increased by 10%. As for people with open-ended term contracts, there was an increase of 2%, which meant 34,000 new open-ended contracts were made in 2017.
The document also revealed that salaried workers have received an average income at about €1,133.34, an increase of €25.48 in comparison to 2016. There is still a huge gap between men and women: first have received, on average, €226 more than the latter.
There were 225,000 companies registered in the country in 2017 — but only 997 are considered large enterprises, with over 250 employees. The North of the country is the area with more companies and more workers in those companies, followed by Lisbon and the Centre region of Portugal, in third.
