Retail trade in the European Union - Issue number 8/2006 - Products Statistics in Focus

This publication describes the structure of the EU retail trade sector based on latest available Structural Business Statistics (SBS). In 2002, the retail trade in the EU-25 provided jobs to 15.5 million people and generated EUR 352 billion in value-added. This was respectively 13.3 % of the total number employed and 7.4 % of total value-added in the non-financial business economy as a whole. Micro enterprises (with less than 10 persons employed) employed more than 40 % of the workforce in the EU-25, which was characterised by the relatively frequent use of women, part-time workers and self-employed.