Today marks the World Day of Insecure Work. According to N1, more than 27,000 people in Serbia, between January 1 and December 18, 2024, were repeatedly employed by the same employer under temporary or occasional contracts throughout the year.
Milica Marinković from the A11 Initiative told N1 that this practice—employers repeatedly extending temporary contracts—is fertile ground for precarious work. These workers often perform the same duties as permanent employees but lack equivalent rights.
“Not only is this precarious work, it’s also illegal. Any insecure form of employment is marked by the fact that the worker performs the same job as a permanent employee but does not share the same rights. They often lack sick leave, annual leave, maternity leave, or paid overtime,” Marinković explained.
She emphasized that low wages are not the only concern. Insecure work also affects better-paid sectors, such as IT or freelance jobs, because workers have no guarantee of when they will receive their next contract, which is often another temporary contract.
The most affected are low-wage workers, though others are impacted as well. “We need to pay the most attention to them—they have the least chance to organize collectively or claim their rights, especially since legal representation can be expensive. This is a major problem for construction workers, seasonal agricultural laborers, and food delivery workers, who often work in unsafe conditions for insecure pay,” Marinković said.
Regarding undeclared employment, she noted that statistics are difficult to track. While illegal employment appears to be decreasing over the past five years, this may reflect a shift toward short-term, low-paid contracts rather than greater compliance by employers. Nevertheless, informal work continues to exist.
Marinković also pointed out that street vendors face precarious conditions and that official statistics often only capture violations discovered by labor inspectors, leaving many cases unrecorded. “The numbers are likely much higher in practice,” she concluded.
