WEC-Europe position for consultation on EU Quality Jobs Act

On 29 January 2026, WEC-Europe published its position paper "Towards an EU Quality Jobs Act? The EU does not need more labour laws to ensure job quality", in response to the European Commission's Quality Jobs Roadmap and related consultation on a potential EU legislative initiative. The key messages of the position paper focus on:​

• The role of the private employment services industry in enabling job quality through better matching, labour-market access, agile workforce solutions and support for just transitions, within a regulated and compliant framework.​

• The need to focus on outcomes rather than regulatory accumulation, by prioritising the application and enforcement of existing EU and national rules (including on minimum wages, gender pay transparency, transparent and predictable working conditions, temporary agency work, platform work and AI) instead of introducing new horizontal labour legislation.​

• The importance of valuing diverse forms of work and service provision, including agency work and subcontracting, as enablers of inclusive, competitive labour markets, while tackling abuses through targeted enforcement, clear allocation of responsibilities along subcontracting chains and effective cooperation between authorities.​

• The opportunity to harness digitalisation and artificial intelligence to improve job quality in practice, building on existing instruments such as the EU AI Act, the General Data Protection Regulation and the Platform Work Directive, and complementing them with human-centric standards, skills development and self-regulatory tools like WEC's Code of Ethical Principles on AI.​

• The centrality of skills development, up- and reskilling and secure labour-market transitions, including in the green and digital transformations, to make quality jobs a reality, with the private employment services industry contributing through training schemes, bipartite training funds and mobility pathways into emerging roles.​

• The crucial role of enforcement and social dialogue: effective inspections, compliance measures and cooperation between authorities, combined with sectoral social partner initiatives and codes of conduct, are identified as prerequisites for improving job quality and ensuring a level playing field for compliant providers.​

• The view that any formal negotiations under Article 155 TFEU on the Quality Jobs Act should be left to cross-industry social partners, while WEC-Europe and UNI-Europa may address quality jobs in the agency work industry through dedicated EU-funded social dialogue projects.