The wide-ranging European perspectives brought together in this volume aim to analyse by means
of an interdisciplinary approach the numerous implications of a massive shift in the
conception of 'work' and the category of 'worker'. Changes in the production models economic
downturn and increasing digitalisation have triggered a breakdown in the terms and assumptions
that previously defined and shaped the notion of employment. This has made it more difficult to
discuss and problematise issues like vulnerability in employment in such terms as unfairness
inequality and inadequate protection. Taking the 'deconstruction of employment' as a central
idea for theorising the phenomenon of work today this volume explores the emergence of new
semantic fields and territories for understanding and regulating employment. These new
linguistic categories have implications beyond language alone: they reformulate the very
concept of waged employment (including those aspects previously considered intrinsic to the
meaning of work and of being 'a worker') along with other closely associated categories such
as unemployment self-employment and inactivity.
