Abstract

The Author analyses the level of social protection dispensed to non standard workers, i.e. to those workers different from the full time employee hired with a contract of indefinite duration. He takes into consideration, more specifically, the part time work, the temporary work, the temporary work through agencies, the apprenticeship contract. He traces, in first place, all the elements of precariousness in social security terms contained in the non standard working patterns: these elements - which are, for example, the working time reduction, in the part time contract, or the presence of a term, in the temporary employment, and so forth - cause gaps in the social protection of non standard workers. The Author, then, outlines the principles which should regulate the social protection system of non standard workers: these are the principle of proportionality, of adequacy and of equality. Finally, the Author shows some possible remedies to the gaps in social protection that non standard workers are forced to face.