Employment of Non-EU-Born Adults Trails the Native-Born by 8.6 Points in the EU and by 16.9 in Finland

Three populations, one comparison

The Labour Force Survey records where each respondent was born, which lets Eurostat publish employment rates for three groups: people born in the country where they now live, people born in another EU Member State, and people born outside the Union. This study compares the first and the third, for the population aged 20 to 64.

Across the EU in 2025, 77.2% of the native-born were in employment, 77.5% of those born elsewhere in the Union, and 68.6% of those born outside it. The overall rate for everybody was 76.1%. The gap this study follows is the first figure minus the third: 8.6 percentage points, computed here from the two published rates.

Where the gap is widest

Finland has the widest gap in the Union: 78.3% of the native-born are in work against 61.4% of the non-EU-born, a difference of 16.9 points. The Netherlands follows at 16.1 points, with 85.9% against 69.8%; Bulgaria at 15.5, with 77.1% against 61.6%; Germany at 15.0, with 84.0% against 69.0%; Belgium at 14.3; France at 14.1; Sweden at 13.7; and Austria at 12.7. Those eight are the Member States above 10 points. Denmark, at 9.2, is the only other one above the EU figure.

With the exception of Bulgaria, the list is the north and west of the Union, and specifically the countries with the highest native employment rates. The Netherlands, Sweden and Germany have native-born rates of 85.9%, 84.7% and 84.0%, the highest in the EU. A wide gap there is partly a high bar: the non-EU-born in the Netherlands, at 69.8%, are employed at a higher rate than the native-born in Italy.

Belgium is the exception to that reading. Its native rate of 75.0% is below the EU average, and its non-EU-born rate of 60.7% is the lowest in the Union.

Where there is no gap, or it runs the other way

In four Member States people born outside the EU are more likely to be in work than the native-born. Slovakia records 84.6% against 78.1%, a reversed gap of 6.5 points; Poland 83.5% against 78.7%, or 4.8 points; Portugal 79.7% against 79.4%; and Luxembourg 70.1% against 69.7%. The last two differences are too small to carry weight on their own, but the sign is what matters.

Czechia at 0.8 points, Ireland at 1.2 and Italy at 1.6 are next: seven Member States have a gap below 2 points, and Slovenia at 2.0 and Greece at 2.1 sit just beyond them.

Slovakia, Poland and Czechia share a feature: their non-EU-born rates of 84.6%, 83.5% and 82.1% are the three highest in the Union, well above the EU native-born rate. Ireland's 78.9% and Portugal's 79.7% are also above it. In those countries the population born outside the EU is, at least as far as employment can show, a working population.

Italy is a different case. Its gap of 1.6 points is narrow because its native-born rate of 67.7% is the lowest in the EU: the non-EU-born, at 66.1%, are employed at a rate that would be near the bottom of the ranking in any country, and so are the natives.

What the comparison cannot settle

Why the gap is 16.9 points in Finland and reversed in Slovakia is not something an employment rate can answer. The two populations born outside the EU are not the same population: they differ in age, in education, in how long ago they arrived and in why. A country whose migrants came recently to work will show a narrow gap or a reversed one; a country whose migrants include many who came for protection, or to join family, will show a wider one for reasons that have little to do with how the labour market treats newcomers. The figures here measure the outcome and leave the explanation open.