Statistics Explained

Welcome To Statistics Explained

Statistics Explained, your guide to European statistics. Statistics Explained is an official Eurostat website presenting statistical topics in an easily understandable way. Together, the articles make up an encyclopedia of European statistics for everyone, completed by a statistical glossary clarifying all terms used and by numerous links to further information and the latest data and metadata, a portal for occasional and regular users.

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Inflation in the euro area

Updated 30/10/2015

The data in this article show the most recent annual rates of change for the euro area headline inflation and its main components issued by Eurostat. The figures presented are early estimates of euro area inflation. More ...

Unemployment statistics

Updated 30/10/2015

This article presents the very latest unemployment figures for the European Union (EU), the euro area and individual Member States, complemented by an overview of long-term developments since the year 2000. Unemployment levels and rates move in a cyclical manner, largely related to the general business cycle. However, other factors such as labour market policies and demographic developments may also influence the short and long-term evolution. More ...

Maritime transport of goods - quarterly data

Updated 29/10/2015

This article presents the main results from quarterly statistics on maritime transport of goods in the European Union (EU), plus figures for Iceland, Norway and Turkey. It covers the gross weight of goods handled in the main European ports, by type of cargo, direction, reporting country and various partner maritime geographical areas. These data are complemented by maritime transport flows with the main extra-EU partners, and with individual results for the major European ports. More ...

Passenger cars in the EU

Updated 29/10/2015

This article describes developments in passenger car stocks and new registrations in the European Union (EU), focusing in particular on passenger cars powered by so-called ‘alternative fuels’. Despite an increase over the last years, passenger cars powered by alternative fuels, including hybrid cars, only made up a small share of the fleet of passenger cars in the EU in 2013. This is reflected by the share of cars powered by alternative fuels being low among the newly registered passenger cars. More ...

Transport accident statistics

Updated 29/10/2015

Safety and security are of primary concern for any transport system. According to Eurostat statistics on the causes of death, the number of people in the European Union (EU) who died as a result of transport accidents (covering all transport modes) fell by 40.8 % for men and 43.8 % for women between 2004 and 2012, accounting for 0.6 % of total deaths in 2012. More ...

Gender statistics

Updated 28/10/2015

This article presents gender statistics for the European Union (EU), a selection of indicators from fields such as education, labour market, earnings and health, which are particularly important for measuring differences in the situation of women and men (i.e. gender gaps). More ...

Did you know that....

In 2014, the highest number of first residence permits in the EU was issued to citizens of Ukraine (303 thousand), followed by citizens of United States (199 thousand), China (170 thousand), India (135 thousand) and Morocco (96 thousand). These five citizenships account for about 40 % of all permits issued in the EU. Read more...

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Migration and migrant population statistics

This article presents European Union (EU) statistics on international migration, population stocks of national and foreign (non-national) citizens and data relating to the acquisition of citizenship. Migration is influenced by a combination of economic, political and social factors: either in a migrant’s country of origin (push factors) or in the country of destination (pull factors). Historically, the relative economic prosperity and political stability of the EU are thought to have exerted a considerable pull effect on immigrants.

In destination countries, international migration may be used as a tool to solve specific labour market shortages. However, migration alone will almost certainly not reverse the ongoing trend of population ageing experienced in many parts of the EU.

Main statistical findings

Migration flows

A total of 3.4 million people immigrated to one of the EU-28 Member States during 2013, while at least 2.8 million emigrants were reported to have left an EU Member State. These total figures do not represent the migration flows to/from the EU as a whole, since they also include flows between different EU Member States.

Among these 3.4 million immigrants during 2013 there were an estimated 1.4 million citizens of non-member countries, 1.2 million people with citizenship of a different EU Member State from the one to which they immigrated, around 830 thousand people who migrated to an EU Member State of which they had the citizenship (for example returning nationals or nationals born abroad), and around 6.1 thousand stateless people.

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