Archive:Employment - quarterly statistics

Data extracted in October 2021

Planned article update: January 2022

Highlights

In the second quarter of 2021, half employed young people worked under temporary contract in the EU.

Across EU Member States, almost 7 in 10 people with a low educational attainment level were employed in Portugal against less than 3 in 10 in Slovakia in the second quarter of 2021.

Gender gap in EU employment was the lowest among native-born people with mixed and foreign background (6 p.p. and 8 p.p.)and exceeded 10 p.p. among native-born with native background and foreign-born people in the second quarter of 2021.

The second quarter of 2021 marked an important phase in the recovery of the European economy and labour market. This is the beginning of the general lifting of distancing measures generated by the health crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many EU Member States started implemented intermediary measures and announced the end, partially or entirely, of the financial assistance to businesses to mitigate the negative effects of the COVID-19 crisis on employment and businesses. In the second quarter, the rebound of the economy is initiated and clearly visible comparing with the first quarter of 2021.

This article gives an overview of employment at EU level as well as in tEU Member States focusing on the two first quarters of 2021. The reference data are from the European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS). It also provides for the first time an insight of the quarterly results collected on the employment of first but also second generation of immigrants. More traditionally, this article depicts employment in general and specifically by gender, age, and level of educational attainment. A specific analysis is dedicated to the temporary contracts and part-time work in the second quarter of 2021.

This article is part of the publication Labour market in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Note: Please take note that figures presented in this article may differ in some cases from the source data due to continuous revision of the Eurostat database (Employment and unemployment (Labour Force Survey)).

Full article

Employment in upward phase, specifically for mid-age women

</> In the EU, employment of women aged 25 to 54 increased by 1.2 p.p., highest increase recorded from Q1 2021 to Q2 2021, lowest increases recorded for workers aged 55-64

In the second quarter of 2021, the share of employed people in the total population aged 20 to 64 reached 72.1 % after recording an increase of 0.7 percentage points (p.p.)) from the previous quarter (see Figure 1). The total employment rate hides a significant difference between men and women. While 78.3 % of men aged 20-64 are employed, women showed an employment rate of 67.2 %. Therefore, the gender gap amounted to 11.1 p.p. in the second quarter of 2020.

In the EU, slightly less than 1 in 3 young people aged 15 to 24 are employed (32.3 %). The male employment rate was 34.9 % against 29.6 % for women. Gender gap was narrower for young people (i.e. 5.3 p.p.) than for the reference population. Employment of men and women increased to the same extent between the first and second quarter of 2020 (+ 0.9 p.p.). Around 8 in 10 people aged 25 to 54 were employed in the EU in Q2 2021 (80.3 %). The gender gap become wider in comparison with young people with a difference of 9.9 p.p. between the employment rate of men (85.7 %) and of women (74.8). The development between the first and the second quarter showed a noticeable difference between men and women. The employment rate of women increased by 1.2 p.p. against 0.8 p.p. for men. The lowest increases between the two quarters have been registered among people aged 55 to 64, the share of employed men as well as of employed women increased both by 0.6 p.p to reach respectively 66.7 % and 54.0 %. Employed people in this age group also show the biggest gender gap compared to the other two groups with a difference between men and women of 12.7 p.p.

Figure 1: Employment rates by gender and age group in the EU, Q1 and Q2 2021
(in % of the total population, seasonally adjusted data)
Source: Eurostat (lfsi_emp_q)

Employment increased in 25 out of 27 EU Member States from Q1 2021 to Q2 2021

In order to provide an overview of the employment at national level, Figure 2 presents the employment rate of people aged 20 to 64 by country and gender in the second quarter of 2021, it also shows the level of employment in the previous quarter for the total population. This figure clearly shows that the employment rates are not homogeneous across the European Union, first between countries but also between gender in many EU Member States. In the Netherlands and in Sweden, more than 8 in 10 people aged 20 to 64 were employed (82.0 % and 80.8 % respectively) while the share of employed people stood below 70 % in Greece (61.2 %), Italy (62.0 %), Romania (66.8 %), Spain (67.2 %) and Croatia (67.8 %).

Comparing with the first quarter of 2021, the highest increases were reported by Slovenia (+2.8 p.p.), Greece (+2.1 p.p.), Belgium and Luxembourg (both +1.5 p.p.). The share of employed people also increased in France, Cyprus, Czechia, Bulgaria and Austria but a lesser extent: the increases in those countries did not exceed 0.5 p.p. Only in two EU Member States (i.e. Estonia and Romania), the employment rate decreased from the first to the second quarter 2021 (-1.4 p.p. and -0.3 p.p.). In all EU countries, the share of employed men is higher that the share of employed women. Although the three widest gender gaps in employment are also observed among countries with the lowest employment rates, this relationship between both is not verified in all countries. The greatest differences between the employment rate of men and women were found in Romania, Italy, Greece, Malta and Czechia, all showing a gender gap exceeding 15 p.p. Czechia and Malta showing relatively high employment rates, 79.4 % and 78.0 % respectively. In contrast, Estonia, Latvia, Finland and Lithuania recorded the narrowest gaps between men and women as they were all below 5 p.p. For comparison purpose, Czechia, Netherlands and Malta reported the highest male employment rates of men with respectively 87.1 %, 86.0 % and 85.8 % while the highest female employment rates reached in Q2 2021 78.2 % in Sweden, 78.0 % in the Netherlands and 76.3 % in Lithuania.

Figure 2: Employment rates by gender and country, Q2 2021
(in % of the total population, seasonnally adjusted data)
Source: Eurostat (lfsi_emp_q)

In Q4 2020 young people still far from their level of employment in Q4 2019

The employment rate of young people (aged 15 to 24) went down in all EU Member States between Q4 2019 and Q4 2020, except in Romania

In the European Union, employed people aged 15-24 accounted for 14.3 million people in the fourth quarter of 2020, accounting for 7.5 % of all employed people aged 15-64. This proportion was 7.9 % a year earlier, in Q4 2019.

The employment rate in the EU among young people was 31.1 % in Q4 2020 against 33.5 % in Q4 2019 (-2.4 p.p.). Among the EU Member states, during the fourth quarter of 2020, more than half of young people were employed in the Netherlands (62.5 %), Denmark (53.0 %) and Austria (50.3 %) but less than 20 % in Bulgaria, Spain, Italy and Greece. Between Q4 2019 and Q4 2020, the employment rate of people aged 15 to 24 fell by more than 5 p.p. in Poland, Portugal and Malta (all -5.4 ) and by 6.3 p.p. in Ireland.

Figure 5: Employment rate by age group and country, Q4 2020
(in % of the total population)
Source: Eurostat (lfsi_emp_q)

Figure 6: Change in the employment rate by age group and country
(Q4 2020 compared with Q4 2019, in percentage points)
Source: Eurostat (lfsi_emp_q)

Moreover, in the EU, 80.1 % of persons aged between 25 and 54 were employed in the fourth quarter of 2020 against 80.7% in the fourth quarter of 2019. This age category stood for 141.2 million people in Q4 2020. In Spain and Lithuania, employment of people aged 25 to 54 was more than 2 p.p. lower in Q4 2020 compared to Q4 2019 as shown in Figure 6. These were the largest decreases found among the EU countries.

Employed people aged 55-64 stood for 36.2 million people in Q4 2020 in the EU. From Q4 2019 to Q4 2020, the share of employed people aged 55-64 increased by +0.5 p.p., reaching 60.2 % in Q4 2020. Among the EU countries, the share of employed people aged 55 to 64 increased in 20 countries, remained stable in one and decreased in 6 countries. This share increased the most, by more than 2 p.p. between the two quarters, in Slovenia (+4.2 p.p.), Poland (+4.0 p.p.), Hungary (+3.3 p.p.) and Greece (+2.3 p.p.).

Disparate employment rates for men and women with low, medium and high educational attainment levels

The employment evolution by sex and educational attainment level over the period Q1 2005 - Q4 2020 shows noticeable differences, both for men and women (aged 20-64), according to their level of educational attainment (see Figure 7). First, men with a high educational level (i.e. tertiary education) were always more likely to be employed than men with a medium (i.e. at most upper secondary or post-secondary non-tertiary education) or a low educational level (i.e. less than primary, primary or lower secondary education, at most). This was also true for women. Similarly, people with a medium educational level were more likely to be employed than those with a low educational level. Secondly, the greater the disparity in employment rates between men and women, the lower the educational attainment level.

Figure 7: Employment rate by sex and educational attainment level in the EU
(people aged 20-64, Q1 2005 - Q4 2020, in % of the total population)
Source: Eurostat (lfsi_educ_q)

Men and women with a high educational level followed roughly the same developments over time and maintained a permanent gap between their respective employment rates. Nevertheless, the gender employment gap for people with a high educational level slightly narrowed over time: from 7.7 p.p. in Q1 2005 to 6.0 p.p. in Q4 2020.

In the fourth quarter of 2020, 87.4 % of men and 81.4 % of women with a high educational level were employed. Women with a high educational level had the lowest employment rate decrease (-0.6 p.p.) between Q4 2019 and Q4 2020, compared to men with a high educational level (-1.0 p.p.), but also to men and women with a medium and low educational level (see below).

Focusing on men and women with a medium level of education, the employment rate followed the same trend for both genders from Q1 2005 to Q4 2020, though fluctuations were sometimes slightly more pronounced for one gender than the other. However, the employment rate of women with a medium level of education was never higher than or equal to that of men. A gender employment gap was present over the whole period Q1 2005 - Q4 2020. It corresponded to 13.4 p.p. in Q1 2005, and reached 11.8 p.p. in Q4 2020. Almost eight out of ten men with a medium educational level (78.1 %) were employed against less than two thirds of women (66.3 %) in Q4 2020. For women, the drop between Q4 2019 and Q4 2020 was less sharp than for men (-1.0 p.p. for women against -1.3 p.p. for men).

In terms of people with a low level of educational attainment in employment, the employment rate of men with a low educational level corresponded to 65.8 % in Q4 2020. In other words, in the fourth quarter of 2020, slightly less than two out of every three men with a low level of educational attainment were employed. For women, the employment rate was 43.6 %, meaning that less than half of women with a low educational attainment level were employed. The gap between men and women was 25.9 p.p. in Q1 2005 but still amounted to 22.2 p.p. in Q4 2020.

Temporary contracts and part-time employment lag behind

Figure 8: Evolution of part-time employment and temporary contracts Vs total employment in the EU
(people aged 20-64, Q1 2008-Q4 2020, in thousand persons)
Source: Eurostat (lfsi_pt_q)

Figure 9: Evolution of temporary contracts and part-time employment by sex in the EU, Q1 2008-Q4 2020
(in % of the total employment)
Source: Eurostat (lfsi_pt_q)

A 10% drop in temporary contracts

Temporary contracts accounted for 10.6 % of total EU employment in the last quarter of 2020, or slightly more than one out of every ten employed people in the EU in Q4 2020, compared to 11.7 % in Q4 2019. From Q4 2019 to Q2 2020, the number of temporary contracts fell by 15.1 % while employment fell by 2.5 %. Consecutively, between Q2 2020 and Q4 2020, the temporary contracts increased by 6.0 %. Over the period Q4 2019-Q4 2020, they decreased by 10.1 % (see Figure 8).

Women with temporary contracts accounted for 11.9 % of the total female employment while this share was 9.6 % for men in the fourth quarter of 2020 (see Figure 9). Men and women seem to follow the same trend however the development in 2020 slightly differs. From Q4 2019 to Q2 2020, the share of temporary contracts in the total female employment decreased by 1.6 p.p. against 1.4 p.p. for men. However, from Q2 2020 to Q4 2020, this share increased by 0.7 p.p. for women but only by 0.3 p.p. for men.

Figure 10 shows the level of temporary contracts in each quarter of 2020 by taking Q4 2019 as a reference (fixed to 100). The level in Q4 2020 was below the level in Q4 2019 in 23 out of 26 countries for which data is available, and in 5 countries, the level in Q4 2020 was even more than 20 % lower than in Q4 2019: these countries were Slovakia (69.2 in Q4 2020), Greece (75.7), Romania (77.3), Slovenia (77.7) and Bulgaria (78.3).

Figure 10: Development of temporary contracts in each quarter of 2020
Source: Eurostat (lfsi_pt_q)

Decrease by 8% in part-time employment

Part-time employment corresponded in Q4 2020 to 16.6 % of the total EU employment. From Q4 2019 to Q2 2020, part-time employment dropped by 9.3 % while total employment fell by 2.5 %. Consecutively, between Q2 2020 and Q4 2020, the number of people in part-time employment increased by 1.4 %. Over the period Q4 2019-Q4 2020, they decreased by 8.0 % (see Figure 8).

Figure 9 shows clearly the gender gap among part-time employment. In the total female employment, women with part-time employment amounted to 27.3 % against 7.3 % for men. From Q4 2019 to Q2 2020, the share of women with part-time employment decreased by 1.9 p.p. against 0.7 p.p. for men, and from Q2 2020 to Q4 2020, the share of women still decreased by 0.2 p.p. while the share of men increased by 0.2 p.p. Comparing Q4 2020 with Q4 2019, women in part-time employment experienced a largest decrease than men in part-time employment (-2.1 p.p. for women versus -0.5 p.p. for men).

As previously shown for temporary contracts, Figure 10 shows the level in each quarter of 2020 by taking Q4 2019 as a reference (fixed to 100). Based on Figure 11, five out of twenty-six countries for which data is available were at least 10 points below their level of Q4 2019, namely Greece (82.1 in Q4 2020), Ireland (89.3), Malta (89.7), Romania and Portugal (both 89.9).

Figure 11: Development of part-time employment in each quarter of 2020
Source: Eurostat (lfsi_pt_q)

Source data for tables and graphs

Employment (general) Q4 2020: tables and figures

Data sources

All figures in this article are based on seasonally adjusted quarterly results from the European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS).

Source: The European Union Labour Force Survey (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. Conscripts in military or community service are not included in the results. The EU-LFS is based on the same target populations and uses the same definitions in all countries, which means that the results are comparable between countries.

European aggregates: EU refers to the sum of the 27 EU Member States.

Country note: (1) In Germany, from the first quarter of 2020 onwards, the Labour Force Survey (LFS) has been integrated into the newly designed German microcensus as a subsample. Unfortunately, for the LFS, technical issues and the COVID-19 crisis have had a large impact on the data collection processes, resulting in low response rates and a biased sample. For this reason, the full sample of the whole microcensus has been used to estimate a restricted set of indicators for the four quarters of 2020 for the production of LFS Main Indicators. These estimates have been used for the publication of German results, but also for the calculation of EU and EA aggregates. By contrast, EU and EA aggregates published in the Detailed quarterly results (showing more and different breakdowns than the LFS Main Indicators) have been computed using only available data from the LFS subsample. As a consequence, small differences in the EU and EA aggregates in tables from both collections may be observed. For more information, see here. (2) Metropolitan France, also known as European France, is the area of the French Republic which is geographically in Europe. It comprises mainland France and Corsica, as well as nearby islands situated in the Atlantic Ocean, the English Channel and the Mediterranean Sea. In contrast, overseas France is the collective name for all the French-administered territories outside Europe. Metropolitan and overseas France together form the French Republic, referred to as "France" in the EU-LFS database.

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

Different articles on detailed technical and methodological information are linked from the overview page of the online publication EU Labour Force Survey.

Seasonally adjustment models: Some of the EU-LFS based seasonally adjusted data published this quarter has been revised substantially. Indeed, the outbreak of the COVID-19 crisis actually lead to a major shock into the series. The impact of COVID-19 on a number of indicators have been explicitly modelled as outliers, and the combined effect of this shock and the new identification of the models explains the observed revisions. The methodological choices of Eurostat in terms of seasonal adjustment in the COVID period are summarised in the methodological paper: "Guidance on time series treatment in the context of the COVID-19 crisis". These choices assure the quality of the results and the optimal equilibrium between the risk of high revisions and the need for meaningful figures, as less as possible affected by random variability due to the COVID shock.

Context

The COVID-19 pandemic hit Europe in January and February 2020, with the first cases confirmed in Spain, France and Italy. COVID-19 infections have since been diagnosed in all European Union (EU) Member States. To fight the pandemic, EU Member States have taken a wide variety of measures. From the second week of March, most countries closed retail shops, with the exception of supermarkets, pharmacies and banks. Bars, restaurants and hotels were also closed. In Italy and Spain, non-essential production was stopped and several countries imposed regional or even national lock-down measures which further stifled economic activities in many areas. In addition, schools were closed, public events were cancelled and private gatherings (with numbers of persons varying from 2 to over 50) banned in most EU Member States.

The majority of the preventative measures were taken during mid-March 2020, and most of the measures and restrictions were in place for the whole of April and May 2020. The first quarter of 2020 was consequently the first quarter in which the labour market across the EU was affected by COVID-19 measures taken by Member States.

Employment and unemployment as defined by the ILO concept are, in this particular situation, not sufficient to describe the developments taking place in the labour market. In the first phase of the crisis, active measures to contain employment losses led to absences from work rather than dismissals, and individuals could not look for work or were not available due to the containment measures, thus not counting as unemployed.

The quarterly data on employment allows along the quarters to report on the impact of the crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic on employment. This specific article focuses on the age and the level of education attainment of employed people in order to determine potential categories more or less affected by the economic downturn. It also shows the evolution of part-time employment and temporary contracts. Another article on the evolution of employment by occupation, sector of economic activity and professional status is also available in the context of the publication Labour market in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic.