EU: Fewer Job Starters Were Recorded in 2022 While 7% of EU Citizens Worked More Than 9 Hours Per Day

According to Eurostat, the European Office for Statistics, recent female job starters were more affected, as the share of those dropped from 6.8 per cent in 2021 to 6.5 per cent in 2022, compared to male workers, who represented 5.5 per cent of all workers, down from 5.7 per cent, AtoZSerwisPlus.pl reports.

The decline noticed among recent female job starters within 15-29 age was evident, particularly among those in formal education, dropping from 27.4 per cent to 25.5 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2022 compared to the same time in 2021. As per their male counterparts in formal education, the share of this category dropped from 25 per cent to 24.6 per cent for all employers.

“The most significant decline in the rate of male recent job starters occurred among those aged 15-29 not participating in formal education, with a decrease from 13.2 per cent in Q4 (fourth quarter) 2021 to 12.5 per cent in Q4 2022 (-0.8 percentage points),” Eurostat explains in a press release.

As per countries that are most affected by declines when it comes to new job starters during the last three months of 2022, Slovenia recorded the most evident decrease – 1.8 percentage points less than in 2021, followed by Cyprus (-1.4 percentage points), and Belgium (-1.1 percentage points).

Luxembourg, Sweden and Austria recorded the highest increases – one, 0.6 and 0.5 percentage points, respectively while in the last three months of 2022, the highest rates of recent job starters in total employment were recorded in Denmark (9.4 per cent), Finland (8.6 per cent), and the Netherlands (8.4 per cent). The lowest rates were recorded in Romania (1.8 per cent), Slovakia (2.1 per cent) and Bulgaria (2.4 per cent).

Data by Eurostat also reveals that the number of hours worked by EU citizens is particularly high for workers in some countries such as Iceland, where 13.5 per cent of total employed people work more than nine hours a month, followed by Greece (12.6 per cent), France (10.2 per cent), Portugal and Italy, where 9.4 per cent of the population working more than nine hours on average, respectively.

On average, seven per cent of employed EU workers usually work 49 hours or more per week at their main job. In addition, the number of working hours was higher among self-employed people – 30 per cent of total self-employed people, compared with employees(four per cent)). Most common professions with long working hours were recorded among skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers – 28 per cent of the total workers in these disciplines and managers (24 per cent) compared to other occupational groups, where less than eight per cent spent more than 49 hours working every week.