The consecutive crises of the 21st century (2008/2009 global recession, COVID-19) have significantly affected labour organization, adding to work flexibilization and precarization, in a reflection of the shifting needs of capital accumulation. While the patterns of employment reorganization are not evenly distributed across space, the juncture between work precarization and geography has not been examined in depth, with most research efforts focusing on the national scale. This article enriches the emerging literature on composite indices of work transformation by constructing an index for work precariousness on the regional scale. It estimates the very Flexible Contractual Arrangements Composite Index in the European Union NUTS2 regions from 2008 to 2020 to comparatively analyse the effects of the 2008/2009 global recession and the initial implications of COVID-19. The findings highlight a persistent division between peripheral and core regions, with the former being locked in trajectories of high precariousness. As found, economically weak and isolated regions, specialized in agriculture and tourism, with high unemployment and youth inactivity, low wages, ageing population, low skills as well as historically high levels of atypical and informal employment, proved to have the most precarious labour markets.