Unemployment in Europe - Statistics & Facts

Unemployment has been one of the most consistent social and economic problems in Europe since the 1990s, with the period following the global financial crisis, great recession, and Eurozone crisis in the 2010s marking a historical high-point for joblessness in most European countries. Unemployment is a measure of the number of people who are involuntarily without employment, that is, it measures people actively seeking work and unable to find it. The unemployment rate in the European Union has hit an all-time low in 2023 following a brief spike during the COVID-19 pandemic, falling to below six percent in the second quarter of the year.

While unemployment has fallen across Europe during this period, there remain vast differences between the rates in different European countries, with southern European countries such as Greece and Spain still having unemployment of more than 10 percent, while countries in central Europe such as Czechia, Poland, and Germany have rates of less than 3 percent. Youth unemployment and long-term unemployment have been particularly prominent in the countries of western Europe which have experienced de-industrialization since the 1980s, as careers in manufacturing and heavy industries have dried up, while services employment has only partially made up for this.

Tight labor market in 2022

Europe's current level of unemployment is low by historical standards. For example, in the first half of the 2010s, the unemployment rate was almost always in double figures, peaking in 2013 at 11.7 percent. From this peak, unemployment gradually declined to a rate of 6.5 percent just before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The societal lockdowns that followed in the wake of the virus caused the EU unemployment rate to increase rapidly in 2020. Due to economic aid from governments and the EU to some of the worst hit countries. The utilization of furlough schemes was an important factor in keeping the damage to the labor market at a minimum, and as a result, unemployment began to fall again from Fall 2020 onwards. The strong labor market looks set to continue during 2022, with the high job vacancy rate of the first quarter of that year suggesting employers are looking to hire even more staff. Among EU member states, Czechia had the highest job vacancy rate in this quarter at 5.9 percent, with Greece having the lowest at 0.8 percent.

Comparisons with the UK and U.S.

The low levels of unemployment experienced by the EU have also been replicated in other parts of the world. In the United Kingdom, the unemployment rate in April 2022 was 3.8 percent, the lowest unemployment rate since the 1970s. Similarly, in the United States, the unemployment rate for May 2022 was just 3.6 percent. In both countries, employers are experiencing staff shortages, with job vacancies in the UK reaching a record level of 1.3 million in May 2022. This was also mirrored in the U.S., where job openings are outpacing the number of jobless people. This was particularly true in the leisure and hospitality sector, where 1 in 10 positions were unfilled as of September 2021.
This text provides general information. Statista assumes no liability for the information given being complete or correct. Due to varying update cycles, statistics can display more up-to-date data than referenced in the text.
Published by Statista Research Department, Sep 15, 2023

Key insights

EU unemployment rate
6%
EU unemployment figures
12.96m
EU country with highest unemployment rate
Spain
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Editor’s Picks Current statistics on this topic

Unemployment rate of the largest economies in Europe from 1980 to 2028

Key Economic Indicators

Unemployment rate of the largest economies in Europe 1980-2028

Total, male, and female youth unemployment rate of the European Union from January 2000 to June 2023

Employment

Youth unemployment rate of the European Union 2000-2023

Temporary employees as percentage of the total number of employees in the European Union (EU27) from 2005 to 2020

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Temporary employment in the EU 2005-2020

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