Archive:Labour force survey overview 2013

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European Union Labour force survey - Annual results 2013

Author: Martin Teichgraber (Eurostat, Labour market)

This article presents the main results for 2013 of the EU Labour force survey (LFS) for the European Union (EU) as a whole (EU-28) and for all Member States, as well as two candidate countries and two EFTA countries. Indicators presented in this publication are: employment rates, part-time employment, number of employed people, hours usually worked, employees with limited duration contracts, number of self-employed persons, self-employment as a proportion of total employment, unemployment rate, long-term unemployment, youth unemployment ratio and number of persons not in the labour force.

Dashboard 1: Labour status of persons aged 15 years and older, EU-28, 2013 - Source: Eurostat (lfsa_ergan)
Click the image for an interactive view of the data

Map 1: Employment rate of persons aged 15-64 years, 2013
Source: Eurostat (lfsa_ergan)

Figure 1: Employees aged 15 and older share of limited duration contract and share of part-time employment, 2013
Source: Eurostat (lfsa_etpga)

Table 1: Employees aged 15 and older average hours usually worked per week by sex, 2013
Source: Eurostat (lfsa_ewhuis)

Figure 2: Self-employed persons aged 15 years and older share of total employment and status, 2013
Source: Eurostat (lfsa_egaps)

Figure 3: Employed persons aged 15+ taking up residence in an EU Member State other than their country of citizenship or from outside the EU within the last two years, 2013 (in %)
Source: Eurostat (LFS data)

Table 2: Employed persons aged 15+ taking up residence in an EU Member State other than their country of citizenship or from outside the EU within the last two years, by nationality, 2011 and 2013
Source: Eurostat (LFS data)

Figure 4: Unemployment rate by duration of unemployment, 2013
Source: Eurostat Eurostat (lfsa_urgan) (lfsa_upgan)

Figure 5: Youth unemployment rate and and youth unemployment ratio, 2013
Source: Eurostat Eurostat (lfsa_urgan) (lfsi_act_a)

Table 3: Unemployment rates, by citizenship 2013
Source: Eurostat (lfsa_urgan)

Figure 6: Labour status of persons aged 15 years and older, EU-28, 2013
Source: Eurostat (lfsa_urgan)

Main statistical findings

In 2013, the state of the EU labour market was determined by the economic crisis, as in previous years. The key EU figures did not improve: they either continued to show a negative trend (unemployment) or remained relatively stable compared with the year before (employment). In addition, national labour market developments showed increasing divergence between Member States in 2013 compared with the previous year.

The 2013 EU employment rate^[1] for persons of working age (15-64) remained unchanged since 2012 at 64.1 %. For the euro area (EA-18) it dropped slightly to 63.5 % (-0.3 percentage points compared with 2012).

The employment rate for the population aged 15-64 exceeded 70 % in six EU Member States (see Map 1). The highest rates were recorded by Sweden (74.4 %), the Netherlands (74.3 %) and Germany (73.3 %). The employment rates for the EFTA countries were above 75 %, with Iceland and Switzerland recording 81.1 % and 79.6 % respectively in 2013.

Eight Member States did not reach 60 %; this was an improvement on 2012 when 11 Member States did not reach 60 %. The lowest employment rates were observed in Croatia (49.2 %), Greece (49.3 %), Spain (54.4 %) and Italy (55.6 %).

Compared with 2012, the employment rate increased by 1.5 percentage points (pps) or more in Latvia (+2.0 pps), Lithuania (+1.7 pps), Ireland (+1.7 pps) and Malta (+1.6 pps). On the other hand, the employment rate fell by 1.5 pps or more in Cyprus (-2.9 pps), Greece (-2.0 pps) and Croatia (-1.5 pps).

The employment rate for the narrower age group of 20-64 years old is used as one of the headline indicators in the Europe 2020 strategy. The EU employment rate for persons aged 20-64 fell in 2013 by 0.1 pps to 68.3 %, well below the target rate of 75 % (Europe 2020 strategy)^[2] by 2020.

In contrast to the general trend, employment of older persons increased. The EU employment rate for those aged 55-64 rose to 50.1 % (+1.3 pps compared with 2012). Sweden recorded a very high employment rate in this age group (73.6 %), followed by Germany (63.5 %) and Estonia (62.6 %). The countries with the lowest employment rates for persons aged 55-64 were Slovenia (33.5 %), Greece (35.6 %) and Malta (35.9 %) (see lfsa_ergan).

Labour force in the EU

The labour force in the EU (i.e. the total of employed and unemployed persons) reached 243.2 million persons in 2013, an increase of 0.4 million on 2012.

The number of persons in employment fell by around 0.5 million to 217.0 million in 2013; this development is due to a decrease in the number of employed men (-0.6 million) while the number of employed women increased slightly (+0.1 million). In 2013, 45.7 % of the employed were women. The total number of employed persons comprised 35.9 million self-employed (including family workers), and 180.9 million employees.

Employees

In 2013 employees accounted for 83.3 % of total EU employment. The proportion of employees was above 90 % in Denmark (91.0 %), Estonia and Luxembourg (both 90.8 %). The figure was below 70 % in both Greece (62.8 %) and Romania (67.8 %). In the EU, 48 % of employees were women. There are sizeable differences between Member States in the proportions of employees working part-time and employees with contracts of limited duration.

Part-time employment generally continued its upward trend in 2013. Part-time employment among employees stood at 20.4 % in the EU, an increase of 0.5 pps on 2012. Some three out of four employees working part-time in the EU were women (77.3 %).

In the EU countries, the share of employees working part-time was highest in the Netherlands (52.4 % of employees), followed by Germany (27.6 %), Austria (26.5 %), the United Kingdom and Denmark (both 26.4 %) and Sweden (26.3 %). The lowest shares were recorded in Romania (0.7 %), Bulgaria (2.2 %), Slovakia (5.1 %) and the Czech Republic (6.1 %). Two EFTA countries, Switzerland (36.1 %) and Norway (27.7 %), also had a relatively large share of part-time employees (see Figure 1).

Employees in full-time jobs usually worked 40.4 hours per week in 2013. The United Kingdom and Austria had the longest weekly working hours (42.4 and 41.6 hours respectively), while employees usually worked less than 39.0 hours per week in Denmark (37.7), Italy (38.7), the Netherlands and Ireland (both 38.9). Part-time employees usually worked 20.2 hours per week in the EU in 2013. They worked longest in Romania and Belgium (both 24.3), Sweden (24.2) and shortest in Portugal (18.0), Germany and Denmark (both 18.4).

In 2013, the gender pattern of full-time and part-time employees differed: while male full-time employees usually worked longer hours than female employees in the EU (41.1 to 39.3 hours per week) and in each Member State, it is the opposite for part-time workers in many countries but not all (see Table 1).

Employees with limited duration contracts accounted for 13.8 % of all employees in the EU. Compared with 2012, the proportion did not change significantly (+0.1 pps). The highest proportion was recorded in Poland (26.9 %), Spain (23.4 %), and Portugal (21.5 %) while it was below 5 % in Romania (1.5 %), Lithuania (2.7 %), Estonia (3.5 %) and Latvia (4.4 %) (see Figure 1).

Self-employed

In 2013 self-employed persons (including family workers) accounted for 15.1 % of total EU employment. Of the 35.9 million self-employed persons in the EU, 28.8 million worked full-time and 7.1 million part-time. The proportion of women among the self-employed was much lower (34.1 %) than among employees, but was higher among part-time self-employed persons (55.0 %).

The proportion of self-employed persons (excluding family workers) varied significantly between countries. It was above 20 % in Greece (32.4 %), Italy (23.3 %) and Portugal (20.9 %), and below 10 % in Luxembourg (8.4 %), Denmark (8.8 %) and Estonia (8.9 %). 28.4 % of self-employed persons in the EU employed staff. The proportion of self-employed with staff among the self-employed was higher than 40 % in Hungary (47.8 %), Germany (43.9 %) and Estonia (42.4 %), and below 20 % in Romania (6.3 %), the United Kingdom (17.4 %) and the Czech Republic (19.9 %) (see Figure 2).

Foreign workers in the EU

In 2013 there were 15.3 million persons living and working in an EU Member State of which they were not a citizen, accounting for 7.0 % of total EU employment. 6.9 million of them were citizens from another EU Member State and 8.4 million were non-EU citizens. The highest proportions of foreign workers among all employed persons in the EU were recorded in Luxembourg (49.9 %) and Cyprus (21.1 %). Among the EFTA countries, Switzerland had a relatively high proportion of foreign workers (24.0 %) (see lfsa_egan).

In the EU as a whole, the employment rate of citizens from another EU Member State ^[3] was significantly higher (68.0 %) than that for non-EU citizens (52.9 %) and even for nationals (64.5 %). In 12 Member States the employment rate for foreign citizens from another Member State was higher than the rate for nationals. It was highest in Slovakia (78.3 %), Latvia ^[4] and the United Kingdom (both 76.6 %). The employment rate for non-EU citizens was above 70 % in the Czech Republic, Cyprus and Latvia. (see lfsa_ergan).

In the last two years, almost one million persons took up residence and worked in an EU Member State other than their country of citizenship. Of these, 38.5 % took up residence and worked in the United Kingdom, 25.2 % in Germany, 5.5 % in Belgium and 4.7 % in Austria (see Figure 3).

620 000 foreign workers who migrated to or within EU countries in the last two years were citizens from another EU Member State and some 370 000 were non-EU citizens. Compared with 2011, the total number of non-national employed persons who had recently moved to an EU country other than their country of citizenship increased by 3.2 %. The growth is due to increased mobility of EU citizens; the mobility of non-EU citizens has however declined. Furthermore the trends across Member States were very different (see Table 2).

The EU Member States whose unemployment rate was below the EU average were those who recorded an increase in recently-arrived foreign workers. Conversely, countries with a comparatively high unemployment rate recorded a decrease in recently-arrived foreign workers. The rate increased in Germany (63.5 %), Austria (49.6 %) and Denmark (34.0 %). By contrast, it declined in Spain (47.8 %) and Italy (32.5 %) compared with 2012. Most of these foreign workers did not move alone within or into the EU. In 2013, around 1.8 million family members ^[5] took up residence with them.

Unemployed

Unemployment in the EU rose to 26.2 million persons in 2013, 0.9 million more than in 2012. Women accounted for 45.8 % of the unemployed persons. The number of unemployed women rose by 0.4 million to 12.0 million, and by 0.5 million to 14.2 million for men compared with 2012 (see lfsa_ugan).

The EU unemployment rate reached 10.8 % in 2013, an increase of 0.3 pps on 2012. In 2013, the rate ranged from 4.9 % in Austria, 5.3 % in Germany, 5.9 % in Luxembourg, 6.5 % in Malta and 6.7 % in the Netherlands to 27.3 % in Greece, 26.4 % in Spain, 17.2 % in Croatia and 16.5 % in Portugal (see Figure 4).

The share of long-term unemployment has steadily increased over the last couple of years. Whereas 47.5 % of unemployed persons in the EU had been out of work for 12 months or longer in 2013, the figure was 33.2 % in 2009. Long-term unemployed accounted for over half of total unemployment in seven Member States — Slovakia (70.2 %), Greece (67.5 %), Croatia (63.7 %), Ireland (60.6 %), Bulgaria (57.3 %), Italy (56.9 %) and Portugal (56.3 %) — while it was below 25 % in Sweden (18.5 %), Finland (20.7 %) and Austria (24.3 %). In 2012 long-term unemployment in Estonia and Latvia exceeded 50 %. These two countries significantly reduced the proportion in 2013 to 44.5 % and 38.3 % respectively.

The main indicator of youth unemployment is the youth unemployment rate for the 15-24 age group. It uses the same standard definition as the unemployment rate for the population aged 15-74. In 2013, the youth unemployment rate in the EU was 23.3 %. Member States had very different youth unemployment rates — it was above or close to 50 % in Greece (58.3 %), Spain (55.7 %) and Croatia (49.8 %) while Austria (9.2 %), Germany (7.9 %) and two EFTA countries, Switzerland (8.5 %) and Norway (9.1 %), recorded rates below 10 % (see Figure 5). The youth unemployment ratio is another indicator of the incidence of unemployment among young people. It is defined as the number of unemployed aged 15-24 divided by the population of that age. This is an important indicator, in particular for young people, as not every young person has entered the labour market yet.

In 2013 the youth unemployment ratio was 9.8 %, or approximately half the youth unemployment rate. The highest youth unemployment ratios were recorded in Spain (20.8 %), Greece (16.6 %), Cyprus (15.0 %) and Croatia (14.4 %). The lowest ratios were recorded in Germany, Luxembourg, Austria and the Czech Republic, where they were 6 % or lower. Italy has one of the highest youth unemployment rates (40.0 %) but an unemployment ratio (10.9 %) lower than Sweden (12.8 %) or the United Kingdom (12.0 %).

These results show that the transition from education to the labour market is not a simple switch of status. For a more detailed explanation, please see the articles 'Participation of young people in education and the labour market' and 'Youth unemployment'.

The unemployment rate in the EU is generally higher for foreign citizens than for nationals of the country in question. In 2013, the EU unemployment rate for citizens from another EU Member State was 12.6 %, while for foreign citizens from outside the EU the rate was almost twice as high (21.9 %). The highest unemployment rates for foreign non-EU citizens were observed in Spain (40.5 %), Greece (39.2 %) and Portugal (30.5 %). Unemployment rates of around 10 % or lower were recorded in the Czech Republic, Cyprus, the United Kingdom and Austria (see Table 3).

Population not in the labour force

In 2013, 179.2 million persons living in the EU were not in the labour force, i.e. neither employed nor unemployed. Of these, 59.5 % were women, 18.2 % were 24 years old or younger and 23.4 % were older than 75. Some of the persons aged 15-74 not in the labour force share some characteristics with the unemployed, even if they do not fulfil all the criteria of the unemployment definition of the International Labour Organisation (ILO). In 2013, 2.2 million persons aged 15-74 were seeking work but were not immediately available to work and 9.3 million were available for work but were not seeking it. They were 6.7 % and 1.6 % respectively of persons aged 15-74 not in the labour force. For a more detailed analysis on the types of joblessness not covered by the ILO definition, please see the article 'underemployment and potential additional labour force statistics'.

Synoptic overview: population by labour status

The synoptic overview (see Figure 6) summarises key results on the labour status of persons aged 15 years and older in the EU-28. The information comprises the following categories: employed, unemployed and persons not in the labour force.

The results include information on self-employed persons, employees, persons in part-time and full-time jobs and persons in permanent and temporary jobs. The results also contain information on short- and long-term unemployment and the number of persons seeking a full-time or part-time job.

Figure 6 reports absolute numbers and the specific proportion of females, as well as of young and elderly persons.

Data sources and availability

Source: the European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) is a large sample, quarterly survey providing results for the population in private households in the EU, EFTA and the candidate countries. Conscripts in military or community service are not included in the results.

Reference period: Yearly results are obtained as averages of the four quarters in the year.

Coverage: The data for France cover the metropolitan territory (excluding overseas regions) Country codes: Belgium (BE), Bulgaria (BG), the Czech Republic (CZ), Denmark (DK), Germany (DE), Estonia (EE), Ireland (IE), Greece (EL), Spain (ES), France (FR), Croatia (HR), Italy (IT), Cyprus (CY), Latvia (LV), Lithuania (LT), Luxembourg (LU), Hungary (HU), Malta (MT), the Netherlands (NL), Austria (AT), Poland (PL), Portugal (PT), Romania (RO), Slovenia (SI), Slovakia (SK), Finland (FI), Sweden (SE), the United Kingdom (UK), Iceland (IS), Norway (NO), Switzerland (CH), the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (MK), Turkey (TR). The abbreviation MK used for the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is a provisional code which does not prejudice in any way the definitive nomenclature for this country, which will be agreed following the conclusion of negotiations currently taking place on this subject at the United Nations.

European aggregates: EU refers to the sum of EU-28 Member States and EA to the sum of the 18 euro area Member States. If data are unavailable for a country, the calculation of the corresponding aggregates takes into account the data for the same country for the most recent period available. Such cases are indicated.

Definitions: The concepts and definitions used in the survey follow the guidelines of the International Labour Organisation. Employment covers persons aged 15 years and over (16 and over in Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom, 15-74 years in Estonia, Latvia, Hungary, Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark, and 16-74 years in Iceland), living in private households, who during the reference week performed work, even for just one hour, for pay, profit or family gain, or were not at work but had a job or business from which they were temporarily absent, for example because of illness, holidays, industrial dispute or education and training.

The LFS employment concept differs from national accounts domestic employment, as the latter sets no limit on age or type of household, and also includes the non-resident population contributing to GDP and conscripts in military or community service.

Unemployment covers persons aged 15-74 (16-74 in Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and Iceland) who were not employed during the reference week, were currently available for work and had either been actively seeking work in the past four weeks or had already found a job starting within the next three months.

Long-term unemployment covers persons unemployed for one year or more. Youth unemployment is unemployment of persons aged 15 to 24. Citizenship is defined according to the national legislation of each country.

Definitions of indicators reported in this publication are available on the EU-LFS Statistics Explained website: EU Labour Force Survey (Statistics Explained)

Context

The EU-LFS is the largest European household sample survey providing quarterly and annual results on labour participation of people aged 15 and over as well as on persons outside the labour force. It covers residents in private households. The EU-LFS is an important source of information about the situation and trends in the EU labour market.

Each quarter around 1.8 million interviews are conducted throughout the participating countries to obtain statistical information for some 100 variables. Due to the diversity of information and the large sample size the EU-LFS is also an important source for other European statistics like Education statistics or Regional statistics.

Further Eurostat information

Publications

Labour market statistics - Pocketbook - 2011 edition

Notes

↑ Employment rates represent employed persons (LFS concept, see Data sources and availability) as a percentage of the population in the same age group.
↑ The European Strategy for a smart, sustainable and inclusive growth (Europe 2020) aims to raise to 75 % the employment rate for men and women aged 20-64 for the EU as a whole. This headline target is translated into specific targets for each Member State (see Conclusions of the European Council — 17 June 2010). For detailed data at EU and at national level for the 20-64 age group, see the dedicated section on Europe 2020 indicators.
↑ The employment rate of foreign citizens is calculated as the proportion of foreign citizens aged 15-64 of the total number of foreigners aged 15-64 residing in the country.
↑ The figure for Latvia lack reliability due to small sample size.
↑ Family members include spouses and children in the same household with less than two years residence in an EU Member State other than their country of citizenship or with a non-EU citizenship.

[1] Employment rates represent employed persons (LFS concept, see Data sources and availability) as a percentage of the population in the same age group.

[2] The European Strategy for a smart, sustainable and inclusive growth (Europe 2020) aims to raise to 75 % the employment rate for men and women aged 20-64 for the EU as a whole. This headline target is translated into specific targets for each Member State (see Conclusions of the European Council — 17 June 2010). For detailed data at EU and at national level for the 20-64 age group, see the dedicated section on Europe 2020 indicators.

[3] The employment rate of foreign citizens is calculated as the proportion of foreign citizens aged 15-64 of the total number of foreigners aged 15-64 residing in the country.

[4] The figure for Latvia lack reliability due to small sample size.

[5] Family members include spouses and children in the same household with less than two years residence in an EU Member State other than their country of citizenship or with a non-EU citizenship.

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