In 2019, there were almost 0.4 million journalists in the 21 EU Member States with available data, representing 0.2% of the total EU employment. As readers expect rapid updates on the coronavirus pandemic, they are set for a double challenge: informing the public whilst also being affected in their work by coronavirus restrictions.
In terms of economic activities associated with journalism, 1.1 million were employed in the 27 EU Member States in publishing activities such as the publication of books, newspapers, magazines and journals. This is equivalent to 0.5% of total EU employment.
Source dataset: lfsa_egan22d
Among EU Member States, Germany recorded the highest share of people employed in publishing activities (1.3% of total employment), followed by Finland and Sweden (both 0.7%) as well as Denmark (0.6%).
This information has been published to mark the occasion of World Press Freedom Day (3 May).
Notes:
- The European Union (EU) includes 27 EU Member States. The United Kingdom left the European Union on 31 January 2020. Further information is published here.
- The figures were collected through the EU Labour Force Survey.
- Economic activity ‘publishing services’ in this article refer to division J58 Publishing activities as defined under NACE Rev.2 classification. This division includes the publishing of books, brochures, leaflets, dictionaries, encyclopaedias, atlases, maps and charts; publishing of newspapers, journals and periodicals; directory and mailing list and other publishing, as well as software publishing.
- Journalists in this article refer to category 'ISCO 2642 Journalists', as defined under ISCO-08 classification.
Source data for ‘journalists’:
- Journalists – Employment data, 2019
- Data on the number of journalists in 2019 were not available for Denmark, Spain, Greece, Ireland, Latvia and Portugal.
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