not employed. It is quite an expected result, but it is also important from the point of view of the shadow employment analysis as the self-employed are among those with higher probability of engagement in shadow activities.

As one could also expect those with part time and fixed term contracts are the least stable group. Only 50% to 60% of persons working on this type of contract continue the same working arrangement in the next year. These are also the groups with the highest transitions out of employment, as stated earlier. What seems important is that the observed transitions out of employment tend to decrease for these groups until 2007 and stabilize in 2008. At the same time, one observes increasing transitions to full time (fixed term contracts) but not to full time or part time open term contracts.

**Table 4 Observed transition probabilities between for various types of employment contracts between t and t+1.**

|**Contract -"t" **|**Contract -"t+1"**|**2004 **|**2005**|**2006**|**2007 **|**2008**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|Full time, open|full time,open term|90.4%|92.9%|91.7%|93.7%|92.6%|
|term|full time,fixed term|1.4%|1.2%|2.0%|1.5%|1.8%|
||part time,open term|0.5%|0.3%|0.3%|0.3%|0.4%|
||part time,fixed term|0.2%|0.2%|0.2%|0.1%|0.1%|
||self employed|0.9%|0.7%|1.0%|0.7%|1.0%|
||NOT EMPLOYED|6.6%|4.8%|4.8%|3.7%|4.2%|
|Full time, fixed|full time,open term|17.7%|13.4%|15.8%|15.4%|19.2%|
|term|full time,fixed term|61.3%|70.6%|68.4%|71.9%|66.2%|
||part time,open term|0.3%|0.1%|0.2%|0.3%|0.3%|
||part time,fixed term|1.6%|0.9%|0.8%|1.0%|0.8%|
||self employed|1.7%|2.1%|2.2%|1.6%|1.6%|
||NOT EMPLOYED|17.4%|12.9%|12.6%|9.8%|11.9%|
|Part time, open|full time,open term|13.6%|8.3%|13.2%|11.6%|15.8%|
|term|full time,fixed term|1.3%|0.6%|1.5%|3.2%|3.4%|
||part time,open term|70.8%|77.5%|69.0%|73.8%|68.2%|
||part time,fixed term|1.6%|1.7%|1.3%|2.3%|1.8%|
||self employed|1.3%|1.3%|2.1%|1.1%|1.8%|
||NOT EMPLOYED|11.4%|10.6%|12.9%|8.0%|9.0%|
|Part time, fixed|full time,open term|5.7%|5.3%|4.5%|5.1%|4.1%|
|term|full time,fixed term|15.1%|11.4%|15.6%|15.6%|17.4%|
||part time,open term|4.7%|4.8%|5.1%|3.0%|3.6%|
||part time,fixed term|50.8%|59.9%|56.1%|57.9%|55.8%|
||self employed|1.9%|1.6%|1.9%|2.1%|2.2%|
||NOT EMPLOYED|21.8%|16.9%|16.7%|16.3%|16.8%|
|Self employed|full time,open term|1.0%|1.2%|1.0%|1.0%|0.9%|
||full time,fixed term|1.2%|1.2%|1.4%|1.9%|1.6%|
||part time,open term|0.0%|0.1%|0.1%|0.1%|0.1%|
||part time,fixed term|0.3%|0.2%|0.1%|0.1%|0.3%|
||self employed|92.7%|92.7%|91.8%|92.8%|92.5%|
||NOT EMPLOYED|4.8%|4.6%|5.6%|4.1%|4.7%|
|NOT-|full time,open term|1.1%|1.0%|1.1%|0.9%|1.1%|
|EMPLOYED|full time,fixed term|3.1%|3.4%|3.7%|3.9%|3.7%|
||part time,open term|0.1%|0.1%|0.1%|0.1%|0.1%|
||part time,fixed term|0.7%|0.7%|0.6%|0.6%|0.6%|
||self employed|1.4%|1.1%|1.0%|1.2%|1.2%|
||NOT EMPLOYED|93.6%|93.8%|93.4%|93.3%|93.3%|

Source: Author‘s calculations based on data from Polish LFS data for years 2003-2008.

Those with full time and fixed term contracts are also the least stable groups in the labor market with only 60%-70% of employed continuing the same labor status in the next year. What seems interesting is that these are groups with relatively high probability of entering full time and open term contracts, suggesting that they may consider staying on a fixed term