In the second quarter of 2026, the employment rate of people aged 20-64 in the EU stood at 76.4%, up from 76.3% in the first quarter of 2026.
Labour market slack – all persons with an unmet need for employment, including unemployed persons – stood at 11.0% of the extended labour force aged 20-64 in the second quarter of 2026, stable compared with the first quarter of 2026.
These figures are based on data on the labour market in the second quarter of 2026, 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 first and the second quarter of 2026, Portugal and Malta (+0.6 percentage points (pp) each), Greece (+0.5 pp) and Latvia and Slovenia (+0.4 pp each) registered the largest increases in the employment rate among the 14 EU countries where employment rose. The employment rate remained stable in 4 EU countries and decreased in 9 EU countries, with the largest decreases in Austria (-0.4 pp), and in Lithuania and Sweden (-0.3 pp each).
Source dataset: lfsi_emp_q
For more information
- Statistics Explained article on EU labour market - quarterly statistics
- Thematic section on the EU labour force survey
- Statistics Explained article on EU labour force survey
- Statistics Explained article on EU labour force survey - correction for breaks in time series
- Database on employment and unemployment (LFS)
- Statistics4beginners on the labour market
- Employment and unemployment visualisations
Methodological notes
- The extended labour force is the total number of persons employed, unemployed, and those seeking work but not immediately available, plus those available to work but not seeking. In this article, the data cover the population aged 20 to 64.
- This article uses quarterly and seasonally adjusted data from the EU labour force survey (EU-LFS).
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| Zařazeno | pá 11.09.2026 11:09:00 |
|---|---|
| Zdroj | Eurostat - news |
| Originál | ec.europa.eu/eurostat/product?code=ddn-20260911-1 |
| lang | en |
| Autor | Eurostat |
