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The EU employment rate reached its highest level on record in the fourth quarter of 2024, according to new data from the OECD.<\/p>\n
Eight EU member states also recorded all-time highs during this period, dating back to when the OECD first began publishing data in 2005.<\/p>\n
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On the flip side, the unemployment rate fell to its lowest level in February 2025 since 2000, showing that fewer people in the EU are without a job.<\/p>\n
That’s also according to the latest labour statistics from the OECD, which run up to February for the unemployment indicator.<\/p>\n
The EU employment rate stood at 70.9% in the final three months of 2024. Among the 24 EU member states included in the dataset, employment rates ranged from 62.2% in Italy to 82.3% in the Netherlands.<\/p>\n
When including selected EU candidate countries, along with EFTA members and the UK, Iceland recorded the highest employment rate at 85.6%, while Turkey had the lowest at 55.2%.<\/p>\n
Among Europe\u2019s five largest economies, Germany recorded the highest employment rate at 77.6%, followed by the UK at 75%.<\/p>\n
France\u2019s employment rate in the final quarter of 2024 stood at 68.9%, falling below both the EU and OECD averages. Spain (66.3%) and Italy (62.2%) were among the four lowest in the dataset, alongside Greece and Turkey.<\/p>\n
EU and 8 members hit the record in employment<\/p>\n
Eight EU member states and candidate country Turkey all recorded their highest employment rates in the final quarter of 2024 \u2014 and the EU average also saw a record peak. The rates look at individuals aged 15\u201364 and are seasonally adjusted.<\/p>\n
Record breaking countries include Germany, Czechia, Portugal, Slovakia, Belgium, Spain, Greece and Turkey \u2014 even though some saw only marginal increases.<\/p>\n
The Netherlands holds the EU’s only rate above 80%<\/p>\n
Among the 24 EU member states listed (excluding Cyprus, Malta, and Romania), the Netherlands is the only one to have recorded an employment rate exceeding 80% since 2005. Iceland and Switzerland also surpassed the 80% mark during this period.<\/p>\n
However, if the 20\u201364 age group is considered \u2014 as used by Eurostat \u2014 more countries may exceed the 80% threshold.<\/p>\n
The largest year-on-year increases in employment rates were observed in Iceland (up 1.6 percentage points) and Greece (up 1.5 percentage points). The OECD attributed these gains to rising labour force participation.<\/p>\n
EU unemployment rate falls to its lowest level in February 2025<\/p>\n
According to the OECD, the EU unemployment rate fell to 5.7% in February 2025 \u2014 its lowest level since January 2000. The data covers individuals aged 15\u201364 and is seasonally adjusted.<\/p>\n
Among the 24 EU member states, unemployment rates ranged from 2.6% in Poland to 10.4% in Spain \u2014 the only country to exceed the 10% mark.<\/p>\n
ADVERTISEMENTTwo Nordic countries report high unemployment rates<\/p>\n
Among all countries in the dataset, Finland (9.2%) and Sweden (8.9%) had the highest unemployment rates after Spain, which topped the list.<\/p>\n
Germany (3.5%) recorded the fourth-lowest unemployment rate overall, making it the best performer among Europe\u2019s five largest economies, followed by the UK at 4.4% (based on January 2025 data).<\/p>\n
Alongside Spain, France (7.4%) and Italy (5.9%) also recorded unemployment rates above the EU average.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ADVERTISEMENT The EU employment rate reached its highest level on record in the fourth quarter of 2024, according…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[3374,2000,299,5187,1699,20327,897,21528,5664],"class_list":{"0":"post-37517","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-employment","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-european","12":"tag-european-union","13":"tag-eurozone","14":"tag-jobs","15":"tag-labour-market","16":"tag-unemployment"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114374305651465634","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}