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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. In recent years there has been a turnaround in European unemployment, with the unemployment rate in the European Union hitting 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 the period following the pandemic, 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.

Unemployment hit a new low-point in many European countries during 2023

The European Union is experiencing the tightest labor market since before the founding of the EU in the early 1990s. The number of unemployed people in the EU fell below 13 million people in 2023, representing less than six percent of the total EU workforce. While this downward trend in unemployment has been seen by most European countries in the aftermath of the COVID-19 economic crisis, there is marked variation between the unemployment level at which large European economies find themselves at in 2023 – for countries such as Germany and the United Kingdom, the unemployment rate is as low as three percent, while for France and Italy is seven to eight percent, and for Spain it is 12 percent. While Spain and Greece still had the highest unemployment among all EU countries in 2023, the number of unemployed people in these southern European countries has been reduced dramatically since the height of the Eurozone crisis in the early 2010s, when one in every four workers in these countries were unemployed.

What is driving the decreases in European unemployment?

The speedy economic recovery which most European countries managed following the coronavirus recession in 2020 is at the core of why Europe’s unemployment has fallen to record lows. While unemployment in Europe has fallen consistently since its early-2010s high-point, only since 2022 has it consistently been below the levels seen before the outbreak of the global financial crisis in 2008. Economists and commentators have cited a number of factors which have spurred this remarkable economic recovery, such as fiscal stimulus from European governments and the EU, the success of job retention schemes during the pandemic, and the surge of pent-up demand for in-person services in the wake of the relaxing of public health restrictions in 2022. The job vacancy rate in the EU surged during this period, almost doubling from its 2020 low of 1.6 percent, to around three percent in 2023, with many employers in countries such as Austria, Belgium, and the Netherlands struggling to find staff for open positions due to the high demand for labor. In spite of this historically tight labor market, economic growth is forecast to slow down in most major European economies in 2024, increasing the likelihood of a resurgence in unemployment.
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, Mar 6, 2024

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

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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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