[Excerpt] This report investigates recent developments in non-standard employment in the European Union. While the overall policy context is ‘social protection for all’, it does not focus exclusively on social protection. This was the orientation of the report from the European Social Policy Network Access to social protection for people working on non-standard contracts and as self-employed in Europe: A study of national policies. One focus of the report is on the growth in non-standard employment in 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.