New forms of employment in Bulgaria – National Report

This study sets out an analytical report and recommendations
relating to new forms of employment. It has been drawn up on the basis
of a national survey conducted in Bulgaria by the Center for Economic
Development that explored the same topic. The study was one of the
activities implemented under project The Adaptation of Industrial Relations
towards the New Forms of Work. An initiative of the Institute for Public
Policy in Bucharest, Romania, the project was implemented with financial
assistance from the European Commission. It has been implemented by
the coordination of the Institute for Public Policy in partnership with
research institutes from Bulgaria, Macedonia, Croatia, Czechia and Poland.
The Center for Economic Development is the Bulgarian partner under the
project.

This research project is a natural continuation of the cooperation of
the consortium of research institutes in the area of evaluation of industrial
relations in the new EU Member States and candidate countries in the
period 2012–2017. Researchers have placed an emphasis on the specifics
of industrial relations in the new as compared to older EU Member
States and on the specific factors that have influenced them such as the
economic and financial crisis, the post-crisis recovery period, the fourth
industrial revolution, known as the digital revolution, and automation and
robotization. This time their attention was focused on the interaction and
parallel manifestations of digitalization and new forms of employment,
coupled with the understanding that these processes are frequently
overlooked in the framework of traditional social dialogue relations and
partnership in new EU Member States. At the same time, the project
partners approached the research task clearly aware of the difficulties
they were to encounter in attempting to determine the adequate research
questions and study populations. Nevertheless, they hope that the project
will contribute to activating and enriching a debate on industrial relations
in the new EU Member States, emphasizing the need to greater labour
market exibility and new regulation of employment relations that is
better suited to contemporary realities.

NEW FORMS OF EMPLOYMENT IN BULGARIA National Report (download)