Just over half of the workers in Europe believe working conditions in their countries are good ones, but only one-third of Portuguese workers felt the same.
Only 32% of people in Portugal thought the country had good working environments, although some 50% said they felt their own personal situations were ok. This was among the lowest levels in the EU 28.
Their counterparts in Spain, however, were yet more dissatisfied with only 20% believing conditions were good.
In Greece, the figure was the lowest of all with only 16% saying that the country’s workers experienced good conditions. It is the only country where fewer than half expressed satisfaction with their own conditions.
The results come from a Eurobarometer survey conducted by Eurostat which was assessing if the quality of work has been hit by the economic crisis.
Although across the EU half were satisfied and half were not, 57% said working conditions had deteriorated in the last five years.
The winner, as ever, was Denmark where a whopping 94% expressed satisfaction with their personal working conditions. Austria, Belgium, Finland and the UK followed.
Generally, most workers express high levels of satisfaction with their working hours (80%) and health and safety at work (85%).
Nevertheless, stress emerged as the most important perceived risk at work (53%). Together with stress, poor ergonomics was perceived as one of the most important risks at work, with 28% identifying repetitive movements and tiring or painful positions as a main health and safety risk in their workplace, and 24% lifting, carrying or moving loads on a daily basis.
The EU is encouraging countries to improve conditions in order to meet the goals set out in Europe 2020 which hope to increase employment nd reduce poverty.
“Good working conditions, including a healthy and safe environment, are often associated with high worker motivation, creativity and commitment, leading ultimately, to high levels of productivity”, it wrote.
The information was gleaned from telephone interviews with more than 26,000 individual workers from different social and demographic groups.
