an employee at a manufacturing factory

The employment rate of people aged 20-64 in the EU stood at 75.7% in the first quarter of 2024, an increase of 0.2 percentage points (pp) compared with the fourth quarter of 2023. 

Labour market slack – encompassing those with unmet employment needs, a large part of which includes unemployed individuals – amounted to 11.2% of the extended labour force aged 20-64 in the first quarter of 2024 (stable compared with the fourth quarter of 2023).

This information comes from data on the labour market in the first quarter of 2024 published today by Eurostat. This article presents only a handful of findings from the more detailed Statistics Explained article.

Employment rate and labour market slack in the EU, Q1 2009 to Q1 2024. Bar chart. For more information click dataset below.

Source datasets: lfsi_emp_q and lfsi_sla_q

Between the fourth quarter of 2023 and the first quarter of 2024, the employment rate varied across the EU countries. Croatia (+1.8 pp), Slovenia (+1.3 pp) and Bulgaria and Greece (both +0.9 pp) registered the highest increases among the 15 EU countries where employment rose. The employment rate remained stable in Italy and Latvia and decreased in 10 EU countries, with the biggest decreases recorded in Cyprus, Estonia and Lithuania (all -0.5 pp).

Change in employment rate, Q1 2024 compared with Q4 2023. Bar chart. For more information click dataset below.

Source dataset: lfsi_emp_q

For more information

Methodological notes

  • The extended labour force is the total number of people employed plus unemployed, plus those seeking work but not immediately available, plus those available to work but not seeking. In this article, data cover population aged 20 to 64. 
  • This article uses quarterly and seasonally adjusted data from the EU Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) data.

If you have any queries, please visit our contact us page.