Demo - Dominique - GOPA
The Netherlands (81.7 %), Sweden (80.7 %) and Czechia (80.0 %) had the highest employment rates in the EU, with more than 8 out of 10 persons aged 20 to 64 in employment in 2021. Similar employment rates are observed in the three EFTA countries for which data is available, i.e. Switzerland (81.8 %), Iceland (81.4 %) and Norway (80.0 %). At the same time, less than 70 % of the population aged 20 to 64 were employed in Croatia (68.2 %), Spain (67.7 %), Romania (67.1 %), Italy (62.7 %) and Greece (62.6 %).
(in % of the total population)
Source: Eurostat (lfsi_emp_a)
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Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and recovery
In 2021, the EU employment rate of people aged 20-64 was 73.1 %. The female employment rate was 67.7 % while the male employment rate reached 78.5 %.
The trend over the last decade was as follows:
- From 2009 to 2013, female employment recorded an upward trend, while male employment recorded a downward trend.
- From 2014 to 2019, the employment rate increased steadily for both men and women. As explained in this article, this positive trend is mainly due to sustained growth in the share of employed people aged 55-64 (see Tool 1).
- However, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the labour market in 2020, the employment rate decreased by 1.0 percentage point (pp) compared to 2019 (-1.0 pp for women and -1.1 pp for men).
- From 2020 to 2021, the share of employed people increased by 1.4 pp with this increase higher for women (+1.6 pp) than for men (+1.3 pp).
The gender employment gap, meaning the difference between the employment rate of men and women, narrowed from 13.4 pp in 2009 to 11.1 pp in 2014. Since then, it has continued to narrow but to a lesser extent, reaching 10.8 pp in 2021. In 2021, 46.3 % of employed people were women.
Romania, Greece, Italy, Malta and Czechia had the largest gender employment gaps, with more than 15 pp of difference between the male and female employment rate in 2021. By contrast, the gender employment gap was less than 5 pp in Lithuania, Finland, Estonia and Latvia (see Figure 1).
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(in % of the total population aged 20-64)
Source: Eurostat (lfsi_emp_a)
Figure 2 shows the employment rate trend by country between 2019 and 2020 for the population aged 20-64 to show the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as between 2019 and 2021 to show the recovery process.
From 2019 to 2020, the employment rate fell in most countries. Austria, Spain, Greece and Ireland recorded the largest decreases in the employment rate, all more than 2 pp. Only 4 EU Member States recorded an increase in the share of employed people, namely Malta, Poland, Croatia and Romania. However, the increase was less than 0.5 pp.
One year later, in 2021, the employment rate reached or exceeded the pre-pandemic level in 16 EU Member States. The largest increases from 2019 to 2021 were recorded in Poland (+3.1 pp), Romania (+2.0 pp), Greece and Malta (both +1.8 pp). By contrast, 11 countries recorded a 2021 employment rate lower than in 2019. The largest declines compared to 2019 were reported by Latvia (-2.0 pp), Estonia and Austria (both -1.2 pp), Bulgaria (-1.1 pp) and Slovakia (-1.0 pp).
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(in percentage points, people aged 20-64)
Source: Eurostat (lfsi_emp_a)