A Worker in Bulgaria Produces Less Than Half of What a Worker in Belgium Does
Silver Data Lab Research Desk · Statistical analysis · Published on 07 August 2026
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- Data source
- Eurostat
- Reference period
- 2025
- Last updated
- 26 August 2026
Key estimates
- Labour productivity per person employed is indexed to an EU average of 100.
- Ireland records 212.9, Luxembourg 153.8 and Belgium 130.0.
- Bulgaria records 59.4, Greece 67.4 and Latvia 70.5.
- Excluding Ireland and Luxembourg, the range runs from 130.0 to 59.4 — a ratio of 2.2 to one.
- Greece has the Union's slowest unit labour cost growth and its third-lowest productivity, which are two descriptions of the same economy.
Output per worker, in purchasing power
Labour productivity here is gross domestic product per person employed, converted to purchasing power standards and indexed so that the EU average is 100. A country at 130 produces 30% more per worker than the European average.
It is the measure that sits underneath most of what this site records about wages, competitiveness and convergence, and it is the constraint on all of them: a country cannot sustainably pay more than its workers produce.
The two figures to discount
Ireland records 212.9 and Luxembourg 153.8.
Neither describes what workers in those countries produce. Irish GDP includes output booked by foreign-owned firms, which this site quantifies in the primary income study: 31.3% of Irish output leaves the country as income to foreign owners each year. Dividing an inflated numerator by Irish employment produces an inflated productivity figure.
Luxembourg's distortion runs the other way and reaches the same result. A large share of the people who work in Luxembourg live in Belgium, France or Germany. They appear in Luxembourg's output and, for some measures, not in its denominators.
Belgium at 130.0 is the highest figure in the Union that means what it appears to mean.
The genuine range
Setting Ireland and Luxembourg aside, productivity runs from Belgium at 130.0 to Bulgaria at 59.4: a ratio of 2.2 to one.
That is narrower than the gap in GDP per capita in euro, which is 8.6 to one, and narrower than the gap in purchasing power terms. The reason is that poorer Member States have both lower productivity and, in several cases, lower employment rates — the two compound in income per head and only one of them appears here.
Denmark, Austria, Sweden and France cluster between 105 and 120, with Germany a little below them at 103.9. The productivity differences among the large western economies are small.
Greece
Greece records 67.4, third from bottom.
The unit labour cost study on this site reports Greece with the slowest cost growth in the Union: 108.5 against a 2020 base of 100, against an EU average of 119.6. Read as competitiveness that is the best result in the Union.
Both facts describe one economy. Greek labour is cheap relative to European labour because Greek output per worker is low, and the internal devaluation after 2010 lowered the price without raising the output. Cost competitiveness achieved by suppressing pay rather than raising productivity leaves a country competitive and poor at the same time, and Greece is the European case study in it.
Why this is the constraint
Almost every convergence question on this site reduces to this indicator.
Wages can converge only as fast as productivity, or unit labour costs rise and competitiveness erodes — which is what the fast-converging Member States are currently experiencing. Living standards can rise sustainably only as fast as output per worker. Public services can be funded only from what is produced.
A ratio of 2.2 to one in output per worker, inside a single market with free movement of capital and labour, is the measurement of how far European economic convergence still has to run.
Labour productivity per person employed, 2025
| Country | index, EU27 = 100 | Gap to EU averagepercentage points, derived |
|---|---|---|
| Ireland | 212.9 | +112.9 |
| Luxembourg | 153.8 | +53.8 |
| Belgium | 130.0 | +30.0 |
| European Unionaggregate | 100.0 | — |
| Latvia | 70.5 | −29.5 |
| Greece | 67.4 | −32.6 |
| Bulgaria | 59.4 | −40.6 |
What these figures cannot tell you
- Ireland and Luxembourg are not comparable
- Irish output includes production booked by foreign-owned firms and Luxembourg's is produced substantially by cross-border workers. Neither index describes what resident workers produce, and both should be excluded from any comparison of underlying productivity.
- Per person, not per hour
- This measure divides output by people employed, not by hours worked. Countries with high part-time employment record lower productivity per person than per hour — the Netherlands most of all, with a 38.6% part-time rate.
- Productivity is not effort
- Output per worker depends on capital equipment, industrial structure and the value of what a country produces far more than on how hard people work. A country specialising in high-value activity records high productivity for that reason alone.
- Purchasing power conversion
- Figures are converted using purchasing power parities, which are estimates subject to revision. The broad ordering is robust; small differences between adjacent Member States are not.
Frequently asked questions
- Which EU country has the highest labour productivity?
- Ireland records 212.9 against an EU average of 100, but that figure reflects output booked by foreign-owned firms rather than what Irish workers produce. Belgium at 130.0 is the highest figure that describes actual production, with Luxembourg's 153.8 also distorted by cross-border commuting.
- Which EU country has the lowest?
- Bulgaria at 59.4, followed by Greece at 67.4 and Latvia at 70.5. Excluding Ireland and Luxembourg, the range across the Union is 2.2 to one.
- Why does Greece have low productivity and low costs?
- Because they are the same fact. Greek labour is cheap relative to European labour because Greek output per worker is low. The internal devaluation after 2010 reduced the price of Greek labour without raising what it produces, leaving the country cost-competitive and poor simultaneously.
- Does high productivity mean people work harder?
- No. Output per worker is determined mainly by capital equipment, industrial structure and the value of what a country produces. A country specialising in high-value activity records high productivity regardless of effort.
Methodological note
Eurostat publishes labour productivity per person employed as GDP in purchasing power standards per person employed, indexed to the EU27 average of 100.
Values are for 2025 and cover all 27 Member States.
The range excluding Ireland and Luxembourg, and the comparisons with unit labour costs, GDP per capita and the primary income balance, are derived by Silver Data Lab across companion studies on this site, each with its own extraction.
Source data
The underlying series can be inspected and re-downloaded from the Eurostat data browser. The filters below are the ones applied.
Labour productivity per person employed and hour worked
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- Filters applied:
- freq=A · unit=PC_EU27_2020_MPPS_CP · na_item=NLPR_PER · time=2025
- Extracted:
- 2026-09-04
- Source last updated:
- 2026-09-03
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