Recorded job starters in the EU decreased in 2022

Fewer job starters were recorded in EU last year, while 7% of the citizens worked for more than 9 hours every single day.

By the end of the year 2022, the number of people who are employed between the ages of 15 and 64 will decrease by 0.2 points, from 6.2% to 6.0%. In addition, 7.0% of EU workers will have worked long-hours in 2022.

SchengenVisaInfo.com reported that Eurostat, European Office for Statistics (Eurostat), found that recent female workers were most affected. Their share dropped from 6.8 percent in 2021 to 6.5 percent in 2022.

In the fourth quarter 2022, the decline in females who had just started a job between 15 and 29 years old was noticeable, especially among those with formal education. The drop from 27,4 to 25,5 per cent compared to 2021's same period is evident. In comparison to their male counterparts with formal education, this category's share dropped from 25% to 24.6% 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 mentions in a press release.

In terms of countries most affected by the decline in new jobs during the third quarter of 2022, Slovenia was the country with the greatest drop - 1.8 points less than 2021. This was followed by Cyprus (-1,4 percentage points) and Belgium (-1,1 percentage points).

In the last quarter of 2022, Denmark (9.4%), Finland (8.6%) and the Netherlands (8.4%%) recorded the largest increases in recent job starters. Romania (1.8%), Slovakia (2.1%) and Bulgaria (2.4%) recorded the lowest rates.

Eurostat data also shows that EU citizens work a lot of hours in certain countries, such as Iceland where 13,5% of all employed workers work over nine hours per month. This is followed by Greece (12,6%), France (10,2%), Portugal, and Italy where 9,4% of the population works more than nine hour per week.

In general, 7 per cent of EU employees work more than 49 hours per week in their primary job. The number of hours worked by self-employed individuals was also higher - 30% of the total number of self-employed persons, compared to employees (4%)). The most common occupations with long hours are skilled agricultural, forest and fishing workers (28%) and managers (24%), compared to the other occupational groups where less than 8 per cent spend more than 49 working hours every week.

Source: schengenvisainfo.com