Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union

E2: Environmental statistics and accounts; sustainable development

e-mail contact : ESTAT-SDG-MONITORING@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; which is embedded in the European Commission’s Priorities under the European Green Deal, Economy that works for people.

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 EU supports growth, job creation and competitiveness through funding instrumentssuch as the European Fund for Strategic Investments, the European Social Fund and its successor, the European Social Fund Plus, the European Structural and Investment Funds, Horizon 2020, the Programme for Employment and Social Innovation (EaSI), the Programme for the Competitiveness of Enterprises and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (COSME), the Emergency Support Instrument, the Connecting Europe Facility and the Creative Europe Programme (CAP).

The European Pillar of Social Rights, jointly proclaimed by the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Council in 2017, sets out 20 key principles and rights essential for fair and well-functioning labour markets and social protection systems. The European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan, adopted in 2021, turns the Principles into concrete actions to benefit citizens. It also proposes an ambitious employment target of 78 % of the population aged 20 to 64 for the EU to reach by 2030. In support of this, the Action Plan proposes to halve the gender employment gap by 2030 compared with 2019 and to decrease the rate of young people neither in employment nor in education or training (NEET) aged 15 to 29 to 9 % by 2030.

The indicator measures the share of the population in the labour force aged 15 to 74 who has been unemployed for 12 months or more. Population in the labour force are those who are either employed or unemployed. 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. Complete and updated ESS data release information can be accessed via Eurostat release calendar.

T+1 year

New data points are disseminated by the end of April after the reference year.

All EU MS

Data are presented for all EU Member States plus Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Türkiye.

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 2009.

> 4 data points

Fully comparable since 2009 for the EU aggregate with some exceptions at the country level over the years.

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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