De studie van arbeidskwaliteit op een hyperflexibele arbeidsmarkt: conceptuele en empirische uitdagingen

In research on job quality, there is consensus about the multidimensional nature of work’s impact on the health, well-being, and functioning of workers. Factors determin-ing job quality are not only related to the content of work tasks and the associated working conditions, but employment conditions and relations also play a significant role. However, insights on the effects of the different dimensions of job quality still mainly come from research on (permanent) employees and do not consider new forms of em-ployment. Today, it can be argued that we have reached a second wave of flexibilisation - or ‘hyper-flexibilisation’. Since the COVID pandemic, many workers made a radical shift to place- and time-independent work. We also see the growth of new labour models such as freelance work, platform work, student work, flexijobs, on-call contracts and posting of foreign workers. After giving an overview of these phenomena in Belgium and the Netherlands, the challenges for measuring job quality associated with these new ways of working are discussed.