Archive:Employment - quarterly statistics
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Highlights
Temporary contracts are less used in the 2020q1 compared to 2019Q4
Employed people are undoubtedly impacted by the recent sanitary crisis due to the COVID-19. Shortly after and as first response, measures like short-time work and financial support to enterprises were implemented in order to keep at bay the expected negative developments on employment and businesses. As regards the labour market, the goal was mainly to maintain employed people at work. However, even if mass dismissals could have been constrained, hiring might have been affected by the pessimistic expectations: enterprises ready to effectively recruit could have withdraw their vacancies, reconsider its plans or put off the recruitment process. Other people like people in probationary periods or trainees might have, in normal times, integrate employment in a longer term but due to the COVID-19 downturn, experienced a job loss. These can be among others mechanisms what can be anticipated as regards employment. Forward, enterprises might encounter long-term difficulties due to change in the the economic activity and lay off in a larger extent.
This article focuses on the changes in the employment observed along the economic crisis based on the quarterly LFS data. It aims at showing the last developments in the employment of young, mid-age and older people as well as it includes an analysis by gender and level of education. Specific point is dedicated to the evolution of part-time and temporary contracts.
The current version reports on the situation in the first quarter 2020 that may eventually include the very early stages of the economic downturn. This means that the impact of the lock-down, that took place in most of EU Member States in the second quarter 2020, will be encompassed in the next update of the article.
Full article
Halt in the employment growth in the EU-27
Employment rate stopped growing beginning of 2020, for the second time since 2013
Since 2013, in the European Union, the share of employed people in the total population kept on growing from a quarter to another until the third quarter of 2019, in which it remained stable compared to the previous quarter for the first time in 6 years. From the third to the fourth quarter 2019, the employment rate increased again from 73.1 % to 73.3 %. However, from the last quarter of 2019 (i.e. 2019Q4) to the first quarter of 2020 (2020Q1), the share of people in employment remained at the same level, recording the second flat growth since 2013 (see Figure 1). Employment of men and women also showed steady shares in the total population between 2019Q4 and 2020Q1: 79.1 of the male population is employed while it is the case 67.5 of the women.
The active population has been exactly unchanged over the last four quarters accounting for 78.2 % of the total population.
In the first quarter of 2020, the last data available, 73.3 % of people aged 20-64 was employed. This is the record high since the first quarter of 2000, the starting point of the time series. In terms of comparison, in 2000Q1, less than two thirds of the total population between 20-64 was in employment (65.4 % ). The increase over this last 20 years is mainly explained by the substantial and steady growth of employment of senior people, increasing from 34.7 % in 2000Q1 to 59.7 % in 2020Q1 as it can be easily observed if Figure 2.
Subdued change in the employment rates in the vast majority of EU Member states
Among EU Member States, more than 80% of the population aged between 20-64 is employed in Sweden (81.7), Estonia (80.7), the Netherlands (80.6), Germany (80.4) and Czechia (80.3) in the first quarter of 2020. The lowest employment rates were reported in Greece, Italy, Croatia, Spain and Belgium where seven or less persons out of 10 were employed at the same period (61.7 in Greece, 63.6 in Italy, 67.1 in Croatia, 67.9 in Spain and 70.4 in Belgium).
As at the European level, the share of employed people in the total population in 2020Q1 remained to a certain extent the same in most of the Member States compared to the previous quarter. Only the employment rates in Malta and Luxembourg fluctuated by more than 0.5 p.p. between both quarters (+1.6 in Malta and -1.9 in Luxembourg).
Looking at the specific employment rates of men and women by country in Figure 4, in almost all countries, there is no clear gap in the evolution of the employment rates. In 23 out of 27 Member States, men and women are quite close in the evolution of the employment rates very often the difference of variation is at most 0.5 p.p. and not systematically in favour of men or women. In four countries, Sweden, Estonia, Malta and Croatia, the change in the employment rates for men and women is nevertheless more disparate. In Sweden and Croatia, the share of employed men in the male population held at 84.3% and at 72.1% while the share of employed women decreased from 79.7 to 78.9 (-0.8p.p.) in Sweden and from 62.7 to 62.1 (-0.6%) in Croatia. In Malta, the female employment rate increased by 3.1p.p. to 69.4 in 2020Q1 while the male rate increased by 0.1p.p. Finally, in Estonia, the male employment decreased by 1.1p.p., standing for 83.3 in 2020Q1 and the female varied by 0.1p.p.
Young and qualified people less employed in the first quarter 2020
Since the first quarter 2015 until the third quarter 2019, employment of young people (aged 15-24) increased continuously from a quarter to another. Between 2019Q3 and 2019Q4, it remained stable around 33.6% and decreased to 33.3% in the first quarter 2020. It decreased by 0.3 p.p. for men reaching 35.6% and by 0.4p.p. for employed women who stand for 30.7 % of the total female population in 2020Q1.
Among mid-age people i.e. people aged between 25 and 54, 80.7% was employed in the 2020Q1 against 80.8% in 2019Q4. For the first time since 2012Q4, the employment rate recorded a decrease from a quarter to another. Men held at 86.5% between both quarter while women lost 0.1p.p. and stood for 74.9% in the first quarter 2020.
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