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Motivation: The scale of presence of non-standard forms of employment in the different economies depends on the laws in force, the offer on the demand side (employers), and the interest in that offer on the supply side (employees). Non-standard employment is more beneficial to employers than to employees because it often involves worse working conditions and lower wages. The evaluation of the relationship between the level of unemployment and the share of non-standard employment forms in Visegrad Group countries includes a comparison of the changes in the unemployment level and the share of non-standard employment forms in employment in the 15–64 age group. In order to verify the hypothesis, the coefficients of correlation and determination between the unemployment rate and the employment in non-standard forms were calculated.Aim: The purpose of the article is to study the relationship between the unemployment rate and the share of non-standard forms in employment in a selected group of countries in the long term. The hypothesis is that changes in the unemployment level are related to changes in the share of non-standard forms in employment.Results: The hypothesis of the article was not confirmed in most of the analyzed cross-sections. Although a statistically significant relationship was observed between the unemployment rate and part-time employment, in a half of the studied countries the relationship was positive and in the other half — negative. The only exception was Poland, due to the very high correlation between the unemployment rate and all the analyzed non-standard employment forms, which was confirmed by high determination coefficient.

Motivation: The Central and Eastern European countries suffered from a decrease in professional activity and increases in unemployment, income inequality, and underemployment. In most of the countries in the region, it was decided to increase labour market flexibility, adopting a Western European model of labour market functioning. The effects of deregulation (flexibility increase) for the labour market depend to a great extent on the economic situation.Aim: The paper attempts to answer the question of the degree to which changes in the employment level and structure can be explained by changes in the economic situation. The article verified two hypotheses: ‘the employment level reacts to changes in the economic situation; however, this reaction in the Central and Eastern European countries is more severe than the average reaction in the European Union’ (H1) and ‘changes in the economic situation determines to a very large extent the employment level in the groups experiencing discrimination (women, youngest and oldest people) more than for employees in general’ (H2).Results: In the majority of the examined countries, a statistically significant correlation occurs between changes in GDP and total employment level; but for all analysed countries as a whole, the influence of changes in GDP on the employment level is not greater than the European Union’s average. The data do not indicate discrimination against certain groups (women, young people, people in pre-retirement age), changes in the employment levels of the aforementioned groups are less dependent on the economic situation than the changes in total employment.