Between the third and the fourth quarter of 2024, 3.2 million unemployed people aged 15-74 in the EU (24.2% of all unemployed in the third quarter of 2024) found a job. During this period, 6.5 million (49.6%) remained unemployed and 3.4 million unemployed people (26.3%) transitioned out of the labour force.
The information comes from recently published data on labour market flows in the fourth quarter of 2024. This article presents a handful of findings from the more detailed Statistics Explained article.
Source dataset: lfsi_long_q
The visual and the table give an overview of all possible transitions and show the changes in labour market status. In the visual, the figures for employment, unemployment and out of the labour force refer to the number of people remaining in each status between the 2 quarters, while the arrows indicate the number of people moving from one status to another.
Source dataset: lfsi_long_q
Of all those in employment in the third quarter of 2024, 2.5 million (1.2%) became unemployed in the fourth quarter of 2024, and 5 million (2.4%) transitioned out of the labour force.
From those counted as out of the labour force in the third quarter of 2024, 4.3 million (3.8%) moved into employment in the fourth quarter of 2024 and 3.8 million (3.3%) transitioned into unemployment.
In the fourth quarter of 2024, the employment rate of people aged 20-64 in the EU stood at 75.9%, stable compared with the third quarter of 2024.
Labour market slack - all persons who have an unmet need for employment, including unemployed people - amounted to 10.8% of the extended labour force aged 20-64 in the fourth quarter of 2024 (a decrease of 0.1 percentage points (pp) compared with the third quarter of 2024).
This information comes from data on the labour market in the fourth quarter of 2024 published today by Eurostat. This article presents only a handful of findings from the more detailed Statistics Explained article on EU labour market.
Source datasets: lfsi_emp_q and lfsi_sla_q
Between the third and the fourth quarter of 2024, Greece and Luxembourg (each +0.8 pp) as well as Lithuania, Malta and Slovenia (each +0.5 pp) registered the highest increases in the employment rate among the 15 EU countries where employment rose. The employment rate remained stable in Estonia and Hungary and decreased in 10 EU countries, with the biggest decreases recorded in Ireland (-0.6 pp), Finland, Italy and Latvia (each -0.4 pp).
Source dataset: lfsi_emp_q