Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union

E2: Environmental statistics and accounts; sustainable development

e-mail contact : ESTAT-SDI-EU2020-INDICATORS@ec.europa.eu

The indicator is part of the EU Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) indicator set. It is used to monitor progress towards SDG 8 on decent work and economic growth.

SDG 8, among other things, calls for providing opportunities for full and productive employment and decent work for all.

Indicator is also included as secondary indicator in the Social Scoreboard for the European Pillar of Social Rights.

The European pillar of social rights sets out a number of key principles and rights to support fair and well-functioning labour markets and welfare systems. It will serve as a compass for a renewed process of convergence towards better working and living conditions among participating member states. It is primarily conceived for the euro area, but is applicable to all member states wishing to participate. The Active Inclusion Approach is a commissions’ recommendation to enable every citizen, notably the most disadvantaged, to fully participate in society, including having a job. The Social Investment Package stresses the importance of activating and enabling services such as job training and search assistance, access to basic bank accounts, energy inclusion and adequate income support.

The indicator measures the share of the economically active population aged 15 to 74 who has been unemployed for 12 months or more. Unemployed persons are defined as persons aged 15-74 who were without work during the reference week, were currently available to start working within the next two weeks and were either actively seeking work in the last four weeks or had already found a job to start within the next three months. The unemployment period is defined as the duration of a job search, or as the length of time since the last job was held (if shorter than the time spent on a job search).

The indicator is part of the Labour Force Survey (LFS) main indicators, where the series are adjusted (seasonal adjustment) and break-corrected, and should consequently not be compared with the indicators in the annual and quarterly detailed series, which are not adjusted and not break-corrected. Results might occasionally be slightly different.

% of total active population by sex.

Calendar year

The indicator is produced according to the high-level quality standards of European Statistics. Details on accuracy can be found in the metadata of the source datasets (see link to related metadata).

ESS (LFS)

Data source: ESS Labour Force Survey (LFS)

Data provider: Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, based on data reported by the countries.

Every year

The indicator is updated annually in April.

T+1 year

New data points are disseminated within one year after the reference year.

All EU MS

Data are presented for all EU Member States plus the United Kingdom, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, North Macedonia, Turkey

All EU MS

Data are comparable between all EU Member States respectively other presented countries.

> 10 years

Presented time series (including EU aggregates) starts in 2005.

> 4 data points

Length of comparable time series without methodological break is longer than 4 data points.

Analysis of indicator is presented in Eurostat's annual monitoring report on Sustainable development in the EU (progress towards SDGs in the EU context).

see table  sdg_08_40

Eurostat dedicated section on SDGs: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/sdi/overview

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