Between the fourth quarter of 2021 and the first quarter of 2022, 3.6 million unemployed people in the EU (25.2% of all unemployed in the fourth quarter of 2021) found a job. During this period, 7.2 million (51.3%) remained unemployed, and 3.3 million unemployed people (23.6%) left the labour force (moved into economic inactivity).
Of all those in employment in the fourth quarter of 2021, 2.3 million (1.2%) became unemployed in the first quarter of 2022, and 4.7 million (2.4%) transitioned out of the labour force.
From those counted as out of the labour force in the fourth quarter of 2021, 5.4 million (4.5%) moved into employment in the first quarter of 2022, and 3.8 million (3.2%) transitioned into unemployment.
This information comes from recently published data on labour market flows in the first quarter of 2022. The article presents a handful of findings from the more detailed Statistics Explained article.
Source dataset: lfsi_long_q (including Member States' data)
Source dataset: lfsi_long_q (including Member States' data)
The graphic and table give an overview of all possible transitions and show the changes in labour market status. In the graphic, the figures for employment, unemployment and outside the labour force (inactivity) refer to the number of people remaining in each status between the two quarters. The grey arrows indicate the direction of net flows.
For more information:
- Statistics Explained article on labour market flow statistics in the EU
- Dedicated section on EU Labour Force Survey
- Database on EU Labour Force Survey
- What’s New article on EU labour market in the first quarter of 2022
Methodological notes
- The labour market flows published from 2021 onwards are based on the EU Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) under the Regulation (EU) 2019/1700 on European statistics relating to persons and households, based on data at individual level collected from samples. More details about the Regulation can be found here.
- The figures are based on seasonally adjusted data.
- Metadata on labour market transitions.
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