How has work relationship has evolved in recent years?

The review “Labor et Emploi”, funded by the Ministry of Labor, is calling for contributions. She invites researchers in French and European social sciences to scrutinize recent developments in the work report. Because if we hear a lot about conversions, refusal of permanent contracts, disengagement or new aspirations, objective studies are lacking to finely measure these phenomena.

First line of work proposed in this call to contributionprofessional mobility. Since the COVID crisis, new figures emerge underline the researchers behind this invitation.

There is the employee, often associated with the young graduate, who refuses to join a multinational whose activity, in his eyes, harms the environment or the climate. There is the employee, who radically changes professionals and professional domain to find meaning in work. Or the one who leaves an intellectual profession for a manual profession.

But what about? “”What we want is to quantify these behaviors“explains the economist Coralie Pérez, Research engineer at Paris 1 University. “”Are these bifurcations, ruptures or reorientations anecdotal or do they involve a significant part of employees?“Who are the people concerned? A fraction of ultra-diplômed or more diverse profiles? And are these people satisfied with their change or do they come back to their original job?

Another emerging figure to analyze is the refusal of stability. We are talking about the worker who declines the CDI in favor of the CDD and the temporary work. Or who chooses the status of contractual rather than that of civil servant. Or who refuses any subordination by opting for independent status.

This refusal of contractual stability is regularly pointed out by employers, with fairly hard speeches, sometimes, on young people who would no longer want to work. But what makes it possible to support these words? “”For the moment, there is no empirical evidence demonstrating a supposed growth of these behaviors“According to Coralie Pérez. It is therefore necessary to quantify these mobility between the status of employee and independent, and to better characterize the said” chosen instabilities “by connecting them to the working and employment conditions and the profiles of the persons concerned.

There is also the question of the so-called disengagement of employees. The development of teleworking or the week “four days” or “in four days” can reflect a desire to distance from work or better conciliation between private and professional life. But is that the sign of disengagement? This hypothesis also requires being demonstrated. “”Isn’t the refusal of work rather the refusal of a certain type of work or management“And a desire to engage differently, wonder the three researchers at the origin of the call.

Social researchers who wish to seize these questions must manifest themselves before September 30. Their articles will be published in the 2026.