[Excerpt] The main focus of this paper is the growth of non-standard employment over the last decade. It finds that, apart from part-time work, there has not been an increase in non-standard employment during this time. However, both temporary contracts and self-employment grew, quite strongly in some Member States, in the long economic boom from the mid-1990s and up to the onset of the recession in 2007. It is, of course, primarily when times are bad that the need for employment and social protection is made manifest.