The Director of the Nevin Economic Research Institute has expressed concern over the growth of "bogus self-employment" with short-term or zero-hours contracts.
Speaking on RTÉ's Today with Keelin Shanley, Tom Healy said there is a degree of uncertainty and vulnerability surrounding the rise in numbers of people on short-term or zero-hour contracts during the economic recovery.
He described bogus self-employment as someone who is declared as self-employed but, for all intents and purposes, is an employee with none of the rights.
In some cases their actual pay may be well below the statutory minimum wage, he said.
Mr Healy said many countries across the OECD manage to combine full employment with flexibility, mobility training, and the ability to change jobs many times in a lifetime while still protecting social rights and securities of citizens
Mr Healy said there are some cases where employers are abusing the economic climate, in particular the retail sector, where employees want to work full time but are told it is impossible for business or scheduling reasons.
"In fact, it raises a crucial issue in terms of the legal rights of workers, particularly in terms of the European directive on part-time working hours, that there should be a right to full-time employment where it is possible for the business to provide it," he said.
He said evidence published by the OECD shows part-time and temporary workers have much less access to training.
He added that this can affect higher education graduates and is not just about low-skilled workers in the hospitality and retail sectors.
Mr Healy said there is also a rise in precarious work in health and in education, which has an impact on skill levels.
He also said there are skill penalties from lack of access to training and as well as wage penalties.
There is a global trend towards what could be called a dismantling of employment rights and social protections but there is an opportunity now, post-recession, to try and address some of these issues, he said.
Mr Healy said the younger generation of higher education graduates could suffer permanent scarring from these employment conditions.
"I think the opportunity now, post-recession, which still hasn't trickled down to everyone is to actually try and address some of these issues and actually improve the living and working conditions particularly of the younger generation, because this is a generation, a cohort of people that could suffer permanent scarring in the labour market if previous recessions are anything to go by," he said.
In response, the Head of Human Resources & Industrial Relations for the Irish Business and Employers' Confederation has said we need to be very careful in how we regulate the labour market, particularly coming out of recession.
Speaking on the same program, Maeve McElwee said people are on short-term contracts because Ireland is coming out of a recession with uneven recovery.
She said the high degree of involuntary under-employment is to be expected after recession and Ireland should not react to this period to regulate for the future.
She said employers are beginning to have more confidence in the recovery and employ more full-time positions.
Ms McElwee said the IBEC survey shows employers are trending towards increasing permanent and full-time employment.
"So, you'll see that the Quarter One statistics demonstrate that 52,000 additional full time jobs have come on stream since the beginning of Quarter One this year," she said.
However, she said consumer demand and retail patterns have changed and flexible employment will always be needed.
She said employers need to bring in people on short-term contracts to cover absences from other workers on leave.
Ms McElwee said there are very good legislative protections in relation to people on part-time work.
She said IBEC have not seen significant evidence that there was widespread abuse of these contracts coming through their free dispute resolution procedures.
She said it is expensive for employers to recruit and train employees, with their survey showing 76% of employers are looking at retraining and up skilling as their number one priority for the next six months.
Ms McElwee said nearly 46% employers employ less than 50 people and 21% less than ten people.
