(19 May 2014) – The employment rate of the population aged 20 to 64 in the EU28 showed a clear pattern during the last decade: it rose steadily from 66.7% in 2002 to 70.3% in 2008, then fell with the financial crisis to 68.9%, and has since continuously decreased to 68.3% in 2013.
For the age group 55 to 64 in the EU28, the pattern is quite different: the employment rate has grown steadily from 38.1% in 2002 to reach 50.1% in 2013. The divergence of the employment rates across Member States has increased after the financial crisis, with a difference between the highest and the lowest employment rates of 19.4 percentage points in 2010 and of 26.6 pp in 2013.
In 2013, the highest employment rates for those aged 20 to 64 were observed in Sweden (79.8%), Germany (77.1%), the Netherlands (76.5%), Denmark (75.6%), Austria (75.5%), the United Kingdom (74.9%), Estonia and Finland (both 73.3%), and the lowest in Greece (53.2%), Croatia (53.9%), Spain (58.2%) and Italy (59.8%). In 2013, only Germany and Malta reached their Europe 2020 targets.
In 2013, the highest employment rate by far for those aged 55 to 64 was observed in Sweden (73.6%), followed by Germany (63.5%), Estonia (62.6%), Denmark (61.7%) and the Netherlands (60.1%). The lowest rates for this age group were registered in Slovenia (33.5%), Greece (35.6%), Malta (35.9%), Croatia (36.5%) and Hungary (38.5%).