Archive:Labour market statistics - professional status

Data extracted in January 2020.

Planned article update: June 2020.

Highlights

In 2018, about 39% of women in the EU aged 25-49 with a child under 5 years worked on a part-time basis compared with 5% of men.

In 2018, around 27% of self-employed people in the EU with employees were women.

In 2018, people in the EU usually worked on average 37.1 hours a week in their main job.

Private households by working status, 2018 (% of private household) - Source: Eurostat (lfst_hhnhwhtc)

This article presents some of the main results from the EU Labour force survey (LFS) for the European Union (EU) as a whole, for all EU Member States individually, as well as for three EFTA countries (Iceland, Norway and Switzerland) and four candidate countries (Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey).

This article complements the articles Employment Statistics, Employment rates and Europe 2020 national targets, Underemployment and potential additional labour force statistics and Unemployment statistics and beyond. It consists of two sections: the first part focuses on the labour market characteristics using household information, while the second part is dedicated to specific individual components.

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Labour market analysis at individual level

Labour force sub-populations

The main sub-populations and their relative and absolute size, as defined in the Labour Force Survey (LFS) are shown in Infographic 1. Among the total EU population in 2018, 380.4 million were aged 15-74 years (which is the focus age interval for employment and unemployment) and 246.7 million of them were in the labour force (also called economically active population); 133.8 million were consequently outside the labour force. Furthermore, 229.8 million persons were in employment , while 16.9 million were unemployed. Among people in employment, employees (195.0 million) outnumbered self-employed persons (32.6 million) by far, and full-time work (183.9 million) was much more common than part-time work (45.9 million).

<thumb src="Labour Market in the EU 2018.PNG"> Infographic 1: Labour market in the EU, 2018
Click on the image for an interactive view of the data. Click on the arrow icons to expand the bars.

Employees versus self-employed persons

Of the working population, the vast majority of persons are employees, namely 84.9 % of the EU-28 population aged 15-74 in 2018 (Figure 4). In general, employees outnumber self-employed persons by a wide margin in all EU-28 countries. The proportion of employees is below 75 percent in only four countries (in Romania and Greece, as well as in the candidate countries Serbia and Turkey). Five countries have more than nine out of ten working persons as employees (Denmark, Luxembourg, Sweden, Germany as well as the EFTA country Norway).

Figure 4: Persons in employment by professional status, 2018 (% of employed aged 15-74 years) - Source: Eurostat (lfsa_egaps)

One in ten persons (10.2 %) in employment was self-employed without employees (own-account workers) and 4.0 % were self-employed with employees (an employer) in the EU-28 in 2018. However, the levels differ substantially between countries; in Greece own-account workers make up close to a quarter of persons in employment (22.2 %) while in Denmark the same group accounts for 4.5 %. Self-employed persons with employees are less common, ranging from 1.1 % in Romania to 7.6 % in Greece.

In the EU-28, 48.1 % of employees (15-74 years) were women in 2018, and 51.9 % men (Figure 5). Consequently, the 28 EU Member States are close to the gender balance for the rate of employees. However, shares differ between EU Member States: the percentage of women among employees ranges from 52.0 % in Lithuania to 43.5 % in Malta.

When it comes to self-employed people, the picture changes markedly, especially for the self-employed with employees. At EU level, there were about two self-employed men without employees for each self-employed woman without employees in 2018 (34.7 % of self-employed persons without employees were women) and almost three self-employed men with employees for each self-employed woman with employees (26.6 % of self-employed persons with employees were women). In Malta, one in five self-employed persons with employees was female (21.4 %) and in Turkey this was less than 9 % in 2018.

Figure 5: Share of women by professional status, 2018 (% of employed women aged 15-74 years) - Source: Eurostat (lfsa_egaps)

For additional information about self-employed persons, see the article Self-employment statistics.

Source data for tables and graphs

Data on Labour Market and Labour Force Statistics

Data sources

Source: the European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) is a large sample, quarterly survey providing results for the population in private households in the EU, EFTA and candidate countries. Conscripts in military or community service are not included in the results.

Reference period: Yearly results are obtained as averages of the four quarters in the year.

Coverage: The data for France cover the metropolitan territory (excluding overseas regions). Country codes: Belgium (BE), Bulgaria (BG), Czechia (CZ), Denmark (DK), Germany (DE), Estonia (EE), Ireland (IE), Greece (EL), Spain (ES), France (FR), Croatia (HR), Italy (IT), Cyprus (CY), Latvia (LV), Lithuania (LT), Luxembourg (LU), Hungary (HU), Malta (MT), the Netherlands (NL), Austria (AT), Poland (PL), Portugal (PT), Romania (RO), Slovenia (SI), Slovakia (SK), Finland (FI), Sweden (SE), the United Kingdom (UK), Iceland (IS), Norway (NO), Switzerland (CH), Montenegro (ME), North Macedonia (MK), Serbia (RS) and Turkey (TR).

European aggregates: EU refers to the sum of EU-28 Member States and EA to the sum of the 19 euro area Member States. If data are unavailable for a country, the calculation of the corresponding aggregates takes into account the data for the same country for the most recent period available. Such cases are indicated.

Definitions: The concepts and definitions used in the survey follow the guidelines of the International Labour Organisation.

Employment covers persons aged 15 years and over (16 and over in Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom, 15-74 years in Estonia, Latvia, Hungary, Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark, and 16-74 years in Iceland), living in private households, who during the reference week performed work, even for just one hour, for pay, profit or family gain, or were not at work but had a job or business from which they were temporarily absent, for example because of illness, holidays, industrial dispute or education and training. The LFS employment concept differs from national accounts domestic employment, as the latter sets no limit on age or type of household, and also includes the non-resident population contributing to GDP and conscripts in military or community service.

•Self-employed persons with employees are defined as persons who work in their own business, professional practice or farm for the purpose of earning a profit, and who employ at least one other person.

•Self-employed persons without employees are defined as persons who work in their own business, professional practice or farm for the purpose of earning a profit, and who do not employ any other person.

•Employees are defined as persons who work for a public or private employer and who receive compensation in the form of wages, salaries, fees, gratuities, payment by results or payment in kind; non-conscripted members of the armed forces are also included.

•The distinction between full-time and part-time work is generally based on a spontaneous response by the respondent. The main exceptions are the Netherlands and Iceland where a 35 hours threshold is applied, Sweden where a threshold is applied to the self-employed, and Norway where persons working between 32 and 36 hours are asked whether this is a full- or part-time position;

•Unemployment covers persons aged 15-74 (16-74 in Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and Iceland) who were not employed during the reference week, were currently available for work and had either been actively seeking work in the past four weeks or had already found a job starting within the next three months.

•Reason for inactivity is the main reason why somebody is not seeking employment. The main reason may or may not be the only reason. Only the main one is retained for analysis in this article.

Definitions of indicators reported in this publication are available on the EU-LFS Statistics Explained website: EU Labour Force Survey (Statistics Explained)

Context

The EU-LFS is the largest European household sample survey providing quarterly and annual results on labour participation of people aged 15 and over as well as on persons outside the labour force. It covers residents in private households. The EU-LFS is an important source of information about the situation and trends in the EU labour market.

Each quarter around 1.8 million interviews are conducted throughout the participating countries to obtain statistical information for some 100 variables. Due to the diversity of information and the large sample size the EU-LFS is also an important source for other European statistics like Education statistics or Regional statistics.