Brussels – The employment rate in the European Union is fast approaching the 2030 target of 78 percent. Last year, it stood at 75.8 percent, up half a percentage point from 2023. Despite significant differences among the 27 member states, all — or almost — are seeing growth, and the gap between the top performer (the Netherlands) and the lowest (Italy) is narrowing. In Italy, it stood at 67.1 percent, an increase of 0.8 percentage points that bodes well. However, it still ranks last for the gender gap and the rate of overqualified women relative to men.
According to data released by Eurostat, 197.6 million EU citizens aged 20-64 worked in 2024. Among the member countries, 15 have crossed the 78 percent threshold, while nine countries fall between 70 and 78 percent. Only three countries – Italy, Greece, and Romania – do not reach 70 percent. At the other end of the spectrum, the Netherlands has the highest employment rate (83.5 percent), followed by Malta (83.0 percent), the Czech Republic (82.3 percent), Sweden (81.9 percent), Estonia (81.8 percent), Germany (81.3 percent), and Hungary (81.1 percent). Among the 27 member states, four countries experienced a slight decline in the employment rate -Estonia, Latvia, Sweden, and Luxembourg.
In the 2030 targets set by the European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan, there is also the reduction of the gender employment gap. Looking at the EU average, the gap is still significant: the male employment rate is 80.8 percent, and the female rate is 70.8 percent. The gap between the Baltic and Scandinavian countries and the Mediterranean countries is abysmal: while in Finland, the gap is now almost negligible (0.7 percentage points), and in the three Baltic countries–Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia–it is about 3 percentage points, in Italy and Greece it still stands at almost 20 percent, at 19.3 and 18.8 percent respectively. In Italy, less than 60 percent of women between the ages of 20 and 64 are working, compared to over 75 percent of the male population.
Another interesting figure is the labor force over-qualification rate, which is the percentage of people with tertiary education employed in occupations that do not require such a high level of education. In 2024, it was 20.5 percent for men and 22 percent for women. From a high of 35 percent in Spain, down to 4.7 percent in Luxembourg. The Italian figure is average compared to that of the EU. Still, again, it is the gender factor that embarrasses the country: In Italy, the female over-qualification rate is 7.7 percentage points higher than the male rate—the deepest gap among the EU27.
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
