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Employment research

John Hurley

Senior research manager

John Hurley is a senior research manager in the Employment unit at Eurofound. He took up the role of research manager in February 2012. He contributes to a number of research projects including the European Jobs Monitor and has authored or co-authored over 20 reports as well as journal contributions and edited collections during his time at Eurofound. His main research interests are in the areas of comparative labour market analysis, restructuring and the changing world of work. John is a graduate of both Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin.

Topics of expertise

John is an expert in the following topics.

Research outputs

John is the author of the following publications.

Events, commentary and analysis

John has contributed the following events, blog posts and podcast episodes.

4 December 2023

Blog post

Building back better: Construction essential for EU green transition

‘Building back better’ is not just an empty slogan – we need the construction sector to help us achieve our climate targets. Eurofound research reveals that construction is where the Fit for 55 climate policy package will generate the most net new employment as Europe looks to improve its energy efficiency and sustainability credentials. But if we are to usher in a new green era, we need to find the workers with the right skills to get the job done.

22 November 2023

Podcast episode

How will Europe’s green transition impact employment?

Climate change objectives and decarbonisation measures are vital for the future of Europe. But how will these objectives impact employment and the labour market? In this episode of the Eurofound Talks podcast series, Mary McCaughey speaks with Eurofound Senior Research Manager John Hurley about new research which shows a marginal increase in net employment from EU decarbonisation measures, but also potentially broad shifts in the labour market that could have a profound impact in several areas.

9 May 2022

Podcast episode

Living and working in Europe: Past, present and future

This podcast focuses on our annual update on the state of ‘Living and working in Europe’. It highlights trends and changes – both positive and negative – in the way citizens across the EU work today, and serves as a guide to policymakers at EU and Member State level. Our experts detail these with useful examples and insights which might also help face into the challenges raised by the most recent results from Eurofound’s unique pan-European Living, working and COVID-19 e-survey.

8 March 2022

Blog post

Marking International Women's Day - Sharing the caring: a necessary step towards gender equality

One of the most striking developments of the last half-century has been the huge rise in female labour market participation in advanced economies. More than two out of every three net new jobs created over the last two decades in the EU have been taken up by women, who now account for 46% of the wor

2 February 2021

Blog post

COVID-19: A tale of two service sectors

The employment fallout of COVID-19 has been a story of two types of service work. Office-based knowledge workers have largely kept their jobs and incomes while participating in the huge and apparently successful ad hoc social experiment in working from home. Client-facing service workers have borne the brunt of the lockdowns and the steep declines in demand for in-person services in restaurants, hotels, leisure and the arts. The upshot is that, unlike the ‘mancession’ following the global financial crisis, the first impacts of the pandemic have fallen disproportionately on low-paid female workers. But to see this in the statistics, we must start by looking beyond the unemployment rate.

2 April 2020

Blog post

Coronavirus: A labour market earthquake

It is less than four weeks since the first large European Coronavirus-related company bankruptcy (Flybe, a British regional airline, on 5 March), but it is clear already that the pandemic is going to disrupt labour markets as seriously as the global financial crisis, if not more so. A large majority of large-scale restructuring reported in the European Restructuring Monitor (ERM) in recent weeks have cited the Coronavirus outbreak as the proximate cause of announced job losses.

1 April 2020

Blog post

What Europe can learn from living-wage campaigns

The coronavirus disease (Covid-19) is having drastic consequences for the world of work. In most European countries workers who are not delivering essential ‘frontline’ services are being asked to stay home. Unfortunately many are out of work, while many of those who are not are minimum-wage and low-pay workers, including those working in retail and food-supply chains. How can we ensure that these workers, so essential to our daily lives, are adequately and fairly paid?

29 October 2019

Blog post

Where are all the good jobs?

Economic disparities have been decreasing between EU member states over the past decade, but at the same time inequality has been growing within member states. Despite national level convergence, the gap in wealth and income between the rich and the poor is growing in most of Europe. Some of this rise has been attributed to increasing returns to education pushing earnings up faster for those in jobs requiring higher levels of education – while wages stagnate for the rest.

25 October 2017

Blog post

New-generation cars boost manufacturing employment

Rising levels of employment in manufacturing in the EU since 2013 have seen the part reversal of a long-term decline in employment in this sector. Data from the European Restructuring Monitor (ERM) database to early September 2017 show that, for the first time since 2005, the number of new manufacturing jobs announced in national media (91,740) outstripped the number of announced job losses (46,478).

26 July 2017

Blog post

Employment shifts in Europe during the recovery: three little noticed trends

The EU has finally recovered all the net employment losses sustained since the global financial crisis. It has been a long and painful process. But there is at last growing evidence of positive momentum in EU labour markets, if not quite ‘animal spirits’. Many of those member states most affected by the global downturn have recorded significant employment growth in the last three years – including Spain (+9%), Ireland (+8%) and Greece (+5%).

Other members of the Employment research unit

Find more staff members of the Employment research unit below.

Dragoș Adăscăliței

Research officer
Employment research

Dragoș Adăscăliței is a research officer in the Employment unit at Eurofound. His current research focuses on topics related to the future of work, including the impact of artificial intelligence on jobs, the consequences of automation for employment and regulatory issues surrounding the platform economy. He is also a regular contributor to comparative projects monitoring structural changes in European labour markets. Prior to joining Eurofound, he was a lecturer in Employment Relations at the University of Sheffield, Management School. He holds an MA in Political Science from Central European University and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Mannheim.

Stavroula Demetriades

Senior research manager
Employment research

Stavroula Demetriades is a senior research manager in the Employment unit at Eurofound. She has responsibility for research in the areas of the green and just transition, social dialogue, management practices, innovation and hybrid work. She holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Aalborg, Denmark. She also has an MSc in Economic Policies from Trinity College Dublin and an MSc in Regional Development from Athens University. Prior to joining Eurofound in 1999, she worked in research institutes, in different posts in the public and private sectors, and conducted organisational and socioeconomic studies. Her main research interests include the green and just transition, human resource management, work systems, innovation, employment and social dialogue. She is also adjunct professor in the Business School at University College Dublin.

Garance Hingre

Research support officer
Employment research

Garance Hingre is a research support officer in the Employment unit at Eurofound. She mainly contributes to managing the European Restructuring Monitor databases. Prior to this, she worked as a research assistant at the ESRI in Dublin and as a research trainee at Eurofound, both in the social policy units, focusing mainly on gender inequalities. She holds a Master's degree in Political Economy from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a Bachelor's degree in European Political Sciences from ESPOL.

Tadas Leončikas

Head of Unit
Employment research

Tadas Leončikas is Head of the Employment unit at Eurofound since September 2022. Prior to this, he was a senior research manager in the Social Policies unit, managing the European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS) and developing Eurofound's survey research. Since joining Eurofound in 2010, he has worked on various topics including survey methods, quality of life, social mobility, social inclusion, trust and housing inadequacies. In his earlier career, he headed up the Institute for Ethnic Studies in Lithuania where he worked on studies related to the situation of ethnic minorities, migrants and other vulnerable groups. As a researcher, he has previously collaborated with the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, the United Nations Development Programme and the International Organization for Migration. He has a PhD in Sociology.

Chiara Litardi

Research officer
Employment research

Chiara Litardi is a research officer in the Employment unit at Eurofound. She works on topics related to restructuring, employment and upward convergence. Chiara manages the European Restructuring Monitor and supervises the information processing, quality control and analysis of its databases. Prior to joining Eurofound in 2021, she worked as an analyst at the European Central Bank, running pan-euro area surveys and researching payment behaviour and financial inclusion. She holds a Master's degree in Economics and Finance from LUISS University in Rome, and a double degree in Quantitative Techniques for Economics and Management (QTEM), and is currently a PhD student at University College Dublin.

Sarah Pearcey

Administrative assistant
Employment research

Sarah Pearcey is an administrative assistant and moved to the Employment unit in 2022. Sarah joined Eurofound in 2012 from the European Commission, where she worked for the most part since 2001 in Brussels and Dublin. Sarah has over 30 years’ experience in similar roles in international environments throughout Europe.

Rui Ribeiro

Administrative assistant
Employment research

Rui Ribeiro is an administrative assistant in the Employment unit. He assists with the development and implementation of various projects related to the unit’s activities. Before joining Eurofound, Rui mainly worked in Brussels, in different roles at several international organisations such as Amnesty International, UITP and IHI. Rui holds a BA in European Studies, an MA in Development Policy and an MSc in Management.

Matteo Sostero

Research officer
Employment research

Matteo Sostero is a research officer in the Employment unit at Eurofound. His research interests include occupational change, using both survey data on occupational tasks and skills intelligence from online job advertisements, digitisation of work, including telework, and wage inequality. Before joining Eurofound in late 2023, he worked in employment and skills research at the European Commission Joint Research Centre, both in Seville and in Brussels. He holds a MSc in Economics from University College London and a PhD in Economics from the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa.

Cesira Urzi Brancati

Research officer
Employment research

Cesira Urzi Brancati is a research officer in the Employment unit at Eurofound. Her research interests include the impact of technology on employment and the digitalisation of work, with a focus on digital labour platforms, digital surveillance and algorithmic management. She specialises in microeconometrics, questionnaire design and survey data analysis. Before joining Eurofound in 2024, Cesira worked at the European Commission Joint Research Centre in Seville, at the International Longevity Centre in London, at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, and at the University of Turin. She holds a Master’s degree and a PhD in International Economics from the University of Tor Vergata, in Rome.

Carlos Vacas‑Soriano

Senior research manager
Employment research

Carlos Vacas Soriano is a senior research manager in the Employment unit at Eurofound. He works on topics related to wage and income inequalities, minimum wages, low pay, job quality, temporary employment and segmentation, and job quality. Prior to joining Eurofound in 2010, he worked as a macroeconomic analyst for the European Commission and as a researcher in European labour markets at the Spanish Central Bank. He holds an MA in European Economic Studies from the College of Europe in Bruges and a PhD in Labour Economics from the University of Salamanca (Doctor Europaeus).

Gijs van Houten

Senior research manager
Employment research

Gijs van Houten is a senior research manager in the Employment unit at Eurofound. He has specific expertise in cross-national survey methodology and the analysis of workplace practices and organisational strategies. He currently leads the preparations for the European Company Survey 2028, is in charge of methodology for the European Quality of Life Survey 2026, and is analysing the online data collected as part of the European Working Conditions Survey 2024, which will inform decision making on the future of surveys in Eurofound. Before joining Eurofound in 2010, he worked at the Netherlands Institute for Social Research (SCP). Gijs spent a year away in 2016, working at the Pew Research Center in Washington, DC. He holds a Masters in Sociology from Radboud University Nijmegen and a PhD in Social Science from Utrecht University.

Christopher White

Survey data support officer
Employment research

Chris White is a survey data officer, based in the Employment unit at Eurofound, tasked with providing support for all three of Eurofound's surveys: the EWCS, EQLS and ECS. Before joining Eurofound in December 2018, he worked on sampling methods and the analysis of household surveys in the national statistical institutes of the United Kingdom and Australia. He holds an MSc in Operational Research and his research interests include the integration of survey and administrative data sources.

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