The European Union’s employment rate rose to 76.4% in the second quarter of 2026, while 24 million people still had an unmet need for work. Eurostat’s latest figures show why a higher share of people in jobs can coexist with considerable unused labor capacity.
The employment rate for people aged 20 to 64 increased from 76.3% in the first quarter, a gain of 0.1 percentage points. Around 198.1 million people in that age group were employed.
Labor market slack, Eurostat’s broader measure of people wanting work or additional hours, remained at 11.0% of the extended labor force. The figures were released on September 11 and are adjusted to remove recurring seasonal patterns.
Unemployment does not capture everyone who wants work
A person working part-time may want and be available for more hours. That person counts as employed, but also contributes to labor market slack.
The measure additionally includes unemployed people, people looking for work who cannot start immediately, and people available for work who are not actively seeking it. Those last two groups are outside the standard labor force, which consists of employed and unemployed people.
Eurostat’s definition of slack brings these groups together to show unmet demand for employment more fully. It does not treat everyone without a job as an available worker.
The employment rate uses the working-age population as its denominator. The slack rate uses the extended labor force. They measure different things, so an employment rate of 76.4% does not imply that the other 23.6% are unemployed.
National labor markets moved in different directions
Employment rates increased in 14 EU countries, held steady in four and declined in nine. Portugal and Malta recorded the largest quarterly gains, each up 0.6 percentage points, followed by Greece at 0.5 points.
Austria’s employment rate fell by 0.4 percentage points. Lithuania and Sweden each recorded a 0.3-point decline.
The broader quarterly labor market report also shows that slack increased in 15 countries. Luxembourg had the largest increase, at 1.0 percentage point, while Lithuania and Greece recorded the largest decreases.
Employment and slack can move differently even within a country because people change their working hours, availability and job-search activity. A single headline rate cannot describe all those movements.
Millions moved into jobs, while others left the labor force
A separate Eurostat release on labor market flows followed transitions between the first and second quarters. It found that 3.1 million unemployed people moved into employment, representing 23.2% of those unemployed in the first quarter.
Another 7.0 million remained unemployed and 3.2 million moved outside the labor force. Leaving unemployment therefore did not always mean finding a job.
These flow statistics cover ages 15 to 74, a wider range than the employment and slack figures above. They should not be combined as if they described the same population.
Available workers and available jobs still have to meet
For employers, aggregate spare capacity does not establish that applicants with the required skills are available nearby. Location, working hours and access to housing can affect whether a vacancy is a realistic option.
Our earlier coverage of Europe’s housing costs and worker mobility examined one obstacle to moving for work. The new quarterly figures do not identify housing as the cause of the recorded slack.
The survey measures labor-market status across private households. Explaining why someone cannot take more hours, start a job or move to a vacancy requires evidence about those individual constraints, beyond the headline employment rate.
