Luxembourg’s fifth national survey shows 72% of the 1,522 employees who took part said they have an “average” or “high” quality of work – an improvement on last year’s result of 68%.

The President of the Chambre des Salariés, Jean-Claude Reding, said this should be looked at in detail and sector by sector.

• Since 2015, the risk of accidents has decreased (14%), but the situation is very different according to trade. The risk stands at 39% for plant and machine operators and 35% for those in skilled industry jobs and artisans and 24% for direct service workers, traders and salespeople, 2% for executives and managers and 4% for intellectual and scientific professions.
• Mental burden — having to focus on several tasks at the same time — is relatively high at 64% but it is decreasing, as is the frequency with which employees are forced to work under pressure (41%) but respecting tight deadlines remains high (61%).
• Co-operation between colleagues and superiors is the top criterion which contributes to the quality of work that employees expect (73.8%) ahead of job security (72.1%) and salary (58%), while promotions (36.8%) or work without being interrupted by phone calls or emails (48.7%) are further down the list.
• Autonomy at work is also taking a back seat. Fewer and fewer employees are able to decide on the content of their work (28%), the order in which they perform their tasks (53%) and their working hours (26%).
• Employees’ opinions seem to be taken into account in two out of five cases but workers have less and less of a say in companies’ decisions (down 27%).
• Conflicts between professional and private life are increasing (18%), particularly when an employee has children.
• Employees spend on average two to two and a half more hours a week than what is written in their contract.

For the first time the survey also looks at the impact of digitalisation, which affects 89% of employees. Those mostly affected are managers and executives (78%), intellectual and scientific professions (75%), associate professionals (70%) and people in administrative roles (67%). But it also affects those in skilled trades and craft when work is done by machines.

Work is done more and more outside of company premises, which means 36% of employees have to move – an effect which has negative consequences for mobility and increases the risk of road accidents and stress on those workers.

Employees also have to remain increasingly reachable (32%) which leads to more interruption and less resting and recuperation time.

A total of 7% of participants think they will lose their jobs to digitalisation within the next 10 years, in particular machine operators and installers, and executives.

The more exposed an employee is to digitalisation, the higher the mental load, researchers explained. And the more that worker has to work to a deadline, the greater the emotional burden. The Chambre des Salariés supports measures to disconnect from work and access to training programmes for those with low levels of qualifications.