In the EU, the employment rate of people aged 20-64 stood at 75.3% in the first quarter of 2023 (Q1 2023), an increase of 0.5 percentage points (pp) compared with the fourth quarter of 2022 (Q4 2022), says Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Union.
Labour market slack – encompassing those with unmet employment needs, a large part of which includes unemployed individuals – amounted to 11.3% of the extended labour force aged 20-64 in Q1 2023 (-0.1 pp compared with Q4 2022).
Changes in the employment rate between Q4 2022 and Q1 2023 varied across the EU countries for which data were available. The highest increases were recorded in Bulgaria (+2.8 pp), Croatia (+2.0 pp) and Cyprus (+1.1 pp).
While employment rose in 19 EU countries, it remained stable in Latvia and Finland and decreased in 5 EU countries, with the biggest decreases recorded in Slovenia (-1.6 pp), Lithuania (-1.0 pp) and Malta (-0.3 pp).
