Employment rate slightly up in Q4 2023

In the EU, the employment rate of people aged 20-64 stood at 75.5% in the fourth quarter of 2023, an increase of 0.1 percentage points (pp) compared with the third quarter of 2023. 

Labour market slack – encompassing those with unmet employment needs, a large part of which includes unemployed individuals – amounted to 11.2% of the extended labour force aged 20-64 in the fourth quarter of 2023 (- 0.1 pp compared with the third quarter of 2023).

This information comes from data on the labour market in the fourth quarter of 2023 published today by Eurostat. This article presents only a handful of findings from the more detailed Statistics Explained article.

Source datasets: lfsi_emp_q and lfsi_sla_q

Between the third and the fourth quarter of 2023, the employment rate varied across the EU countries. Croatia (+1.5 pp) and Greece (+0.7 pp) registered the highest increases among the 11 EU countries where employment rose. The employment rate remained stable in France, the Netherlands and Romania and decreased in 10 EU countries, with the biggest decreases recorded in Luxembourg (-1.0 pp) and Lithuania (-0.6 pp).

Source dataset: lfsi_emp_q