In 2022, 891 600 people in the EU were employed as authors, journalists or linguists. This marks a 9.1% increase from the 816 800 recorded in 2017. 

In 2022, the countries with the largest share of the EU people employed in these fields were Germany (25.6%), France (12.0%) and Spain (9.1%). Malta, Cyprus, Latvia, Estonia and Luxembourg had less than 0.5% of the total EU share each. 

Top 5 EU countries by number of persons employed as authors, journalists and linguists in 2022, 1 000 persons. Bar chart. See link to full dataset below.

Source dataset:  LFS special extraction

Since 2017 the highest increases in the number of people employed as authors, journalists or linguists were recorded in Lithuania (+166.0%), Finland (+31.5%) and Hungary (+30.8%). The highest decreases were in Latvia (-35.6%), Estonia ( 34.3%) and Greece (-22.5%).

80 000 enterprises in the publishing industry in 2022 

In 2022, there were 80 000 enterprises in the industry of publishing books and periodicals or performing other publishing activities. 

The highest numbers of such enterprises were in France (23 469), Spain (5 981) and Germany (5 533). The lowest numbers were in Luxembourg (79), Cyprus (93) and Malta (105). 

Top 5 EU countries by number of enterprises in the publishing sector, total numbers, 2022. Bar chart. See link to full dataset below.

Source dataset: sbs_ovw_act

The largest increases between 2021 and 2022 were in France (38.9%), Malta (14.1%) and Latvia (4.8%). The largest decreases were in Luxembourg (-16.0%), Denmark (-9.0%) and Poland (-7.8%).

This news article was published to celebrate the World Press Freedom Day.

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Methodological notes

Number of persons employed:

  • Note a break in time series for all countries in 2021 due to the implementation of the new Regulation (EU) 2019/1700.
  • Croatia, Latvia and Malta: low reliability
  • Slovakia: not reliable
  • EU aggregate: estimated

Number of enterprises:

  • Ireland: data confidential
  • All other EU members: 2022 data are provisional 

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