Archive:Employment - quarterly statistics

Data extracted in October 2021

Planned article update: January 2022

Highlights

In the second quarter of 2021, half of 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.

Employment rate 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)

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 reduction of distancing measures generated by the health crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many EU Member States started implementing intermediary measures and announced the end, partially or entirely, of 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 was initiated and clearly visible in the development of employment in comparison with the first quarter of 2021.

This article gives an overview of employment at EU level, as well as at national level in the individual Member States, three EFTA countries (Iceland, Norway and Switzerland) and one candidate country (Serbia), focusing on the two first quarters of 2021. The results come from the European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS). It also provides, for the first time, an insight into the quarterly results collected on the employment of the first and second generations of migrants. Furthermore, this article depicts employment in general and specifically by gender, age and level of educational attainment. A complementary analysis in this article focuses on 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 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 an upward trend, specifically for women aged 25 to 54

In the EU, employment of women aged 25 to 54 increased by 1.2 p.p., the highest increase recorded from Q1 2021 to Q2 2021

In the second quarter of 2021, the share of employed people in the total population aged 20 to 64 reached 72.8 %, recording an increase of 0.7 percentage points (p.p.) from the previous quarter (see Figure 1). The total employment rate masks a significant difference between men and women. While 78.3 % of men aged 20-64 were employed, the employment rate of women was 67.2 %. Therefore, the gender gap was 11.1 p.p. in the second quarter of 2021.

In the EU, slightly less than 1 in 3 young people aged 15 to 24 were employed (32.3 %). The male employment rate in this age group was 34.9 % against 29.6 % for women. The gender gap was narrower for young people (exactly 5.3 p.p.) than for the reference population (aged 20-64). Employment of men and women increased at the same rate between the first and second quarter of 2021 (+ 0.9 p.p. for both genders). Around 8 in 10 people aged 25 to 54 were employed in the EU in Q2 2021 (80.3 %). The gender gap has become wider in comparison to young people aged 15-24 with a difference of 10.9 p.p. between the employment rate of men (85.7 %) and of women (74.8 %). The evolution of the employment rate between the first and the second quarter showed a noticeable difference between men and women aged 25 to 54. 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 were registered among people aged 55 to 64, the share of employed men and of employed women both increased by 0.6 p.p. to reach 66.7 % and 54.0 % respectively. Employed people in this age group also show the largest gender gap compared to the other two groups with a difference between men and women of 12.7 p.p.

Figure 1: Employment rate 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 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, firstly between countries and secondly 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 %).

From the first to the second quarter of 2021, the highest increases were reported in Slovenia (+2.8 p.p.), Greece (+2.1 p.p.), Belgium and Luxembourg (both +1.5 p.p.). Substantial increases, of more than 1 p.p., were found in Sweden, Finland, Portugal and Ireland. The share of employed people also increased in France, Cyprus, Czechia, Bulgaria and Austria but to a lesser extent: the increases in these 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 was higher than 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 seen in all countries. The largest 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, all below 5 p.p. Czechia, the Netherlands and Malta reported the highest employment rates of men with respectively 87.1 %, 86.0 % and 85.8 % while the highest female employment rates in Q2 2021 were 78.2 % in Sweden, 78.0 % in the Netherlands and 76.3 % in Lithuania.

Figure 2: Employment rate by gender and country, Q2 2021
(in % of the total population aged 20-64, seasonally adjusted data)
Source: Eurostat (lfsi_emp_q)

Around half of people with low educational level in employment

Slovakia, Romania, Poland and Bulgaria recorded the largest employment differences between people with low and high educational attainment level in Q2 2021

Another way of looking at employment is according to the educational attainment level to show the distribution of people in employment and in the total population according to the level of education as displayed in Figure 3. The objective here is to investigate if there are differences regarding the level of education in the employed population compared to the total population (employed and not employed). Figure 3 presents this distribution for both men and women and for the total. In the whole population aged 20 to 64, around 1 in 5 persons had a low educational attainment level (20.3 %) but among employed people, only 15.0 % had a low educational attainment level, so this category seems under-represented in the employed population. The low educational attainment level refers to the attainment of lower secondary education, at most. With respect to people with a medium educational attainment level (corresponding to at most upper secondary or post-secondary non-tertiary education), they show approximately the same proportion in the population as well as in employment, 47.9 % against 47.6 %. People with a high level of educational attainment level, i.e. tertiary education, accounted for 31.7 % of the total population but for 37.4 % of total employment.

The largest differences were found among women with a low and high level of education. The share of women with a low level of education in the female population was 19.4 % but they accounted only for 12.3 % of employed women. At the opposite end of the scale, more than 40 % (42.5 % exactly) of employed women had a high level of education but compared to the total female population, they accounted for slightly more than one third (34.4 %).

Figure 3: Comparison of the share of people by education level in total employment and in the population, EU, Q2 2021
(in %, people aged 20-64, seasonally adjusted data)
Source: Eurostat (lfsi_educ_q)

At EU level, the employment rate of people with a low level of education is 54.3 %, 72.4 % among people with a medium level of education and 84.8 % for people with a high level of education. In fact, the EU countries show very disparate employment rates with respect to people with a low educational attainment level. More than 60 % of people with low educational attainment level were employed in Portugal (68.7 %), the Netherlands (66.2 %), Malta (64.8 %), Cyprus (63.8 %), Germany (61.1 %), Luxembourg (60.6 %) and Estonia (60.3 %), but less than 45 % in Slovakia (25.3 %), Romania (41.7 %), Croatia (43.4 %) and Belgium (43.8 %). The largest differences between the share of employed people with a high and low educational attainment level were found in Slovakia (59.8 p.p.), Romania (47.0 p.p.), Poland (43.4 p.p.), Bulgaria (43.0 p.p.), Croatia (40.9 p.p.) and Belgium (40.4 p.p.). Based on the most recent data, in the general population, more than one third (34.2 %) of people aged 25-64 with a low education attainment level are actually between 55 and 64 years old. This category of people aged 55 to 64 represent 27.1 % of those with a medium educational attainment level aged 25-64 and 18.3 % of those with a high education level.

Figure 4: Employment rate by education level and country, Q2 2021
(in % of the total population aged 20-64, seasonally adjusted data)
Source: Eurostat (lfsi_educ_q)

Prevalence of temporary contracts among young employed people, part-time among women

One quarter of employed people in Spain had a temporary contract in Q2 2021

One relevant finding in the second quarter of 2021 refers to the share of temporary contracts (see Figure 5). Taking the population of employees as reference, temporary contracts accounted for 13.0 % of employees in the EU. This share reached 24.7 % in Spain and 23.1 % in the Netherlands which means that almost 1 in 4 employees aged 20-64 were employed with a temporary contract in these two countries. This share was below 5 % in Slovakia (3.7 %), Bulgaria (3.2 %), Romania and Latvia (both 2.4 %), Lithuania (1.9 %) and Estonia (1.7 %). It also seems that there is no clear link between the level of employment and the share of temporary contract in a country, this means that a high or a low employment rate did not explicitly impact the share of temporary contracts in a specific country (see the attached Excel file for further details).

Figure 5: Temporary contracts by country, Q2 2021
(in % of total employees aged 20-64, seasonally adjusted data)
Source: Eurostat (lfsi_pt_q)

However, the disparity between the different age groups is very high. Almost 1 in 2 employees aged 15 to 24 (49.0 %) had a temporary contract, 11.9 % for people aged 25 to 54 and less and (6.3 %) for people aged 55 to 64. Furthermore, the last quarterly results based on the Labour Force Survey show that the share of temporary contracts among young people (aged 15-24) is quite specific across countries. For example, it equals or exceeds 60 % in Spain, which recorded the highest share with 69.4 %, the Netherlands (66.6 %), Slovenia (64.7 %), Italy (61.7 %) and Portugal (60.0 %) while temporary contracts for the total employees amounted to less than 15 % in Bulgaria (8.5 %), Lithuania (8.7 %), Romania (8.8 %), Hungary (13.2 %), Slovakia (13.5 %) and Malta (14.7 %).

Figure 6: Share of employees with temporary contract by age group and country, Q2 2021
(in % of total employees, seasonally adjusted data)
Source: Eurostat (lfsi_pt_q)

More than 1 in 4 men working part-time would like to work more, this share drops to less than 1 in 6 among women working part-time

In all EU countries, more women than men tended to work part-time, Romania was the only exception. At EU level, part-time employment makes up 28.4 % of the total number of employed women. Among employed men, the situation is greatly different as 7.6 % of men in employment worked part-time in Q2 2021. At EU level, 15.9 % of women working part-time in the second quarter of 2021 wanted to work more hours but among men working part-time, this percentage reached 25.6 %. Figure 7 shows the share of men and women working part-time as well as the share of underemployed part-time workers in the total male and female employment. Both for men and women, the Netherlands ranked first with 62.7 % of employed women and 17.6 % of employed men working part-time. Almost half employed women worked also part-time in Austria (49.9 %), Germany (48.0 %) and more than 3 in 10 in Belgium (38.5 %) and Italy (31.3 %). This part-time working pattern was reported by less than 5 % of employed women in Bulgaria (1.6 %), Romania (2.6 %) and Slovakia (4.7 %). Regarding men, the highest shares of part-time workers in total employment, following the Netherlands (17.6 %), were recorded in Denmark (11.6 %), Sweden (11.2 %), Austria (10.8 %), Belgium (10.2 %) and Germany (10.1 %).

Among men, underemployed part-time workers, such as part-time workers who wanted to work more, accounted for more than half the part-time workers in Greece (66.0 %), Cyprus (58.8 %), Spain (56.8 %) and Croatia (53.3 %) but less than one fifth in the Netherlands, Slovenia, Denmark, Austria, Germany and Czechia. With respect to female part-timers, more than 40 % of them wanted to work more in Greece (54.4 %), Cyprus (47.8 %), Spain (46.2 %) and Croatia (42.9 %) while it was less than 10 % of women working part-time in Austria, Germany and Czechia.

Figure 7: Share of employed people working part-time and underemployed part-time workers by country, Q2 2021 (in % of total employment, people aged 20-64, seasonally adjusted data
Source: Eurostat (lfsi_pt_q)

First and second generation of migrants: education as a critical factor

With regard to newly released data, starting from Q1 2021, data based on LFS provide quarterly indicators on the employment of the second generation of migrants. However, unlike the first sections of this article, data is not seasonally adjusted, meaning that no corrections regarding the volatility due to seasonal effects have been applied. The concept of migration used in this section is explained in a diagram here and at the bottom of this article in written form (see 'definitions').

At EU level, the employment rate varied quite significantly according to the migration status (see Figure 8). The highest employment rate was recorded by native-born people with mixed background, those born in the country of interview (native born) and having one foreign-born parent and one native-born parent. Indeed, slightly more than three quarters were employed in the second quarter of 2021 (75.1 %). They were closely followed by native-born people with native background recording an employment rate of 74.7 %. Native-born with foreign background (i.e. persons who are native-born, with both parents being foreign-born) had an employment rate of 71.0 % in the second quarter of Q2 2021. Furthermore, around two thirds of foreign-born people (66.5 %), as the first generation of migrants, were employed at the same period.

Regardless of the migration status, the share of employed men was always higher than the share of employed women but the difference can vary according to the migration status. The widest gender gap was reported by foreign-born people (16.9 p.p.) as a result of a male employment rate of 75.2 % versus a female employment rate of 58.3 %. Ranking second are native-born people with native background with a difference of 10.4 p.p. between men and women. The second generation of migrants are those who had the narrowest gender gaps: native born people with foreign background recorded a difference of 7.6 p.p. between the employment rate of men and women and the native born people with mixed background showed the smallest difference i.e. 5.8 p.p. between men and women.

Figure 8: Employment rate by migration status, education level and gender, Q2 2021, EU
(in % of the total population aged 20-64, not seasonally adjusted data)
Source: Eurostat (lfsq_erganedm)

This basic description of the employment rate should be complemented by the level of education of each category (to what extent people are employed according to their migration status and educational level), together with the proportion of people having attained a low, a medium or a high education level by migration status in the population.

Among people with low educational attainment level, the foreign-born people i.e. the first generation of migrants registered the highest employment rate (56.0 %), followed by native-born people with mixed background (55.7 %), native-born people with native background (53.5 %) and native-born with foreign background (53.2 %). Significant gender gaps are reported by both foreign-born people and native-born people with native background, both having differences in the employment rate of men and women of more than 20 p.p. (respectively, 24.4 p.p. and 22.5 p.p.). However, this pattern is not observed in people with a medium or a high level of education, which deviates substantially. Native-born people with native background had the highest employment rate in both categories of education level (medium and high), respectively 73.8 % among people with a medium level of education and 87.4 % among people with a high level of education, followed by the native-born people with mixed background with respectively 71.4 % and 86.1 % for medium and high level of education, by native-born people with foreign background with employment rates of 70.3 % and 83.7 % and finally, the foreign-born people with 68.0 % and 76.6 %.

Figure 9 gives the distribution of people in the total population by migration status and education level. One third of foreign-born people (33.6 %) had a low level of education, this is more than the double of the share of native-born people with mixed background with a low level of education (12.0 %) and native-born people with native background (16.1 %). Moreover, almost 1 in 5 native-born people with foreign background had also a low level of education (18.7 %). Slightly more than half native-born with native background and people from the second generation of migrants had attained a medium level of education while it was the case for only 36.9 % of the foreign-born people. More than one third of native-born people with mixed background (37.7 %) had a high level of education, substantially more than native-born people with native background (30.8 %), foreign-born people (29.5 %) and native-born people with foreign background (29.0 %). No matter the migration status, women were more likely to have attained a high level of education and less likely to have a low level of education.

Based on more detailed LFS data collected in the past, migrants having a foreign background with EU or non EU origins would likely record different results with respect to their employment rate. However, current quarterly data do not include such detailed information. The publication on First and second-generation immigrants - statistics on labour market indicators present some 2014 employment indicators according to this criteria.

Figure 9: Share of people by education level, migration status and gender, EU, Q2 2021
(in % of the total population aged 20-64, not seasonally adjusted data)
Source: Eurostat (lfsq_erganedm)

Based on 23 EU Member States for which data on native-born people with native and mixed background is available, the majority of countries (18 exactly) do not follow the EU pattern. In most of countries, the highest rate of employment was recorded by the native-born people with native background, followed by some of the other categories of migration status, as shown in Figure 10.

Figure 10: Employment rate of native-born people with native, mixed and foreign background and of foreign-born people by country, Q2 2021
(in % of the total population aged 20-64, not seasonally adjusted data)
Source: Eurostat (lfsq_erganedm)

Source data for tables and graphs

Employment (general) Q2 2021: 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) except for the last section on the first and second generations of migrants.

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 notes:

In Germany, the whole microcensus has been used to estimate a restricted set of indicators from the first quarter of 2020 for the production of LFS Main Indicators. These estimates have been used for both the publication of German results and 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. In 2021 Q1 only, data of one federal region, Bremen, is not included in the estimates, but national estimates are reweighted to respect population margins.
Spain and France have assessed the attachment to the job and included in employment those who have an unknown duration of absence but expect to return to the same job once the COVID-19 measures in place are lifted.

Definitions:

The concepts and definitions used in the Labour Force Survey follow the guidelines of the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

The migration status distinguishes between native-born people and migrants, and between the first and second generation migrants. Migrants are persons who established their usual residence in another country than they were born, for a period that is – or is expected to be – at least 12 months. The usual residence means the place at which a person normally spend the daily period of rest, regardless of temporary absence for purposes of recreation, holidays, visits to friend and relatives, business, medical treatment or religious pilgrimage or, by default, the place of legal or registered residence. Second-generation migrants refer to two different groups of immediate descendants of migrants. The first group, with a mixed background, is defined as persons who are born in the country of interview (native born) and who have one foreign-born parent and one native-born parent. The second group, with a foreign background, is defined as persons who are native-born, with both parents being foreign-born.

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: 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 been diagnosed since then 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 2020, 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 preventive measures were initially introduced during mid-March 2020. Consequently, the first quarter of 2020 was the first quarter in which the labour market across the EU was affected by COVID-19 measures taken by Member States.

In the following quarters of 2020, as well as 2021, the preventive measures against the pandemic were continuously lightened and re-enforced in accordance with the number of new cases of the disease. New waves of the pandemic began to appear regularly (e.g. peaks in October-November 2020 and March-April 2021). Furthermore, new strains of the virus with increased transmissibility emerged in late 2020, which additionally alarmed the health authorities. Nonetheless, as massive vaccination campaigns started all around the world in 2021, people began to anticipate improvement of the situation regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.

The quarterly data on employment allows to regularly report on the impact of the crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic on employment. This specific article depicts employment in general and specifically by gender, age and level of educational attainment; it moreover provides results on the temporary contracts and part-time work and presents for the first time quarterly employment rates for the first and second generations of migrants. Another article focuses on the employed people and job starters by sector of economic activity and occupation.

Please note that in this exceptional context of the COVID-19 pandemic, employment and unemployment as defined by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) are 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. Only referring to unemployment might consequently underestimate the entire unmet demand for employment, also called the labour market slack, which is further analysed, with namely the evolution of the total volume of working hours, in the publication Labour market in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic.