4.9 million employed in finance and insurance sector

In 2021, 4.9 million people were employed in the EU’s financial and insurance activities sector. This represents 3.1% of all employed people in the EU.

During the same year, there were 759 159 enterprises in this sector, making up 2.5% of all enterprises active in the EU’s business economy. The net turnover amounted to €2.3 trillion, while the value added stood at €1 trillion.

Following the entry into force of the European Business Statistics (EBS) Regulation, Eurostat has extended the service coverage for structural business statistics (SBS) and is publishing, for the first time, SBS data on the financial and insurance activities sector.

Source dataset: sbs_ovw_act

In 2021, the countries with the highest share in terms of employment were Luxembourg (12.1% of the country’s business economy), Cyprus (5.7%) and Ireland (5.6%). Meanwhile, the lowest share of employment in the financial and insurance activities sector were in Czechia (2.2%), Romania (2.1%) and Lithuania (1.8%).

In terms of value added, the highest percentage share was recorded in Luxembourg (34.0% of the country’s business economy), the Netherlands (31.5%) and Sweden (18.9%).