Regional employment rates and territorial labour participation
- Eurostat dataset
- lfst_r_lfe2emprt
- Reference period
- 2025
- Unit of measure
- % of population aged 20-64
Key estimates
- EU aggregate (2025): 76.1 % of population aged 20-64.
- Highest value: Iceland at 85.8 % of population aged 20-64; lowest: Türkiye at 58.1 % of population aged 20-64.
- Cross-country mean 76.4 % of population aged 20-64, standard deviation 6.59, coefficient of variation 8.6% across 34 reporting countries.
- Aggregate change 2014→2025: +12.3% on a constant panel of 33 countries.
How far apart are European regions in labour market participation? Eurostat dataset lfst_r_lfe2emprt reports regional employment rates and territorial labour participation for 34 reporting countries, with 2025 as the most recent period carrying broad coverage. The European aggregate stands at 76.1 % of population aged 20-64. Employment rates measured at regional level expose participation gaps that national averages compress.
The five highest values in 2025 are recorded by Iceland (85.8), Malta (83.6), Netherlands (83.4), Czechia (82.9), Switzerland (82.4), all expressed in % of population aged 20-64. At the opposite end of the distribution sit Türkiye (58.1), Bosnia and Herzegovina (59.5), North Macedonia (63.7), Italy (67.6), Romania (69.0). The ratio between the highest and the lowest observation is 1.48, while the median country reports 78.2 % of population aged 20-64 against a mean of 76.4 % of population aged 20-64.
Dispersion is narrow: the standard deviation across countries is 6.59 % of population aged 20-64, giving a coefficient of variation of 8.6%. The mean sits below the median, which indicates that the distribution is pulled by the lower tail rather than being symmetric. Any European average quoted for this indicator therefore describes a synthetic country that few Member States resemble.
Between 2014 and 2025 the summed value across the 33 countries reporting in both periods moved by +12.3%. The largest relative increases are observed in Greece (+33.2%), Serbia (+30.7%), Croatia (+25.9%); the largest decreases, or the smallest increases, in Norway (-0.1%), Iceland (+1.1%), Switzerland (+1.6%). Because the panel is held constant, this change is not an artefact of countries entering or leaving the sample.
Higher values are the policy-preferred direction for this indicator, so the countries listed at the bottom of the distribution mark the effective size of the European gap: closing it to the level of the fifth-ranked country would require the lowest performer to move by 24.3 % of population aged 20-64. The estimates above are reproducible: the dataset identifier, filter dimensions and reference period are stated in the methodological note, and the series can be re-downloaded from the Eurostat dissemination API at any time.
Methodological note
Source: Eurostat, dataset lfst_r_lfe2emprt ('Employment rates by NUTS 2 region'), extracted from the Eurostat dissemination API (JSON-stat 2.0) on the dataset update of 2026-06-30. Filter dimensions: age=Y20-64; sex=T; unit=PC. Unit of measure: % of population aged 20-64. Reference period: 2025. Geographic perimeter: national reporting units with two-character geo codes (34 countries with a non-missing observation); European and euro-area aggregates are excluded from the cross-country statistics and reported separately. Descriptive statistics (mean, median, population standard deviation, coefficient of variation) are computed unweighted over reporting countries. Change over time is computed on a constant panel: only countries with a non-missing observation in both the base and the reference period enter the calculation, which removes composition effects but may differ from the officially published aggregate. No imputation, seasonal adjustment or re-scaling has been applied beyond what Eurostat performs at source. Flagged provisional and estimated observations are retained as published.
Source data
The underlying series can be inspected and re-downloaded from the Eurostat data browser.