09/06/2020 15:19
The number of persons employed decreased by 0.2% in the euro area by 0.1% in the EU, 0.1% in Greece and increased by 0.5% in Cyprus in the first quarter of 2020 compared with the previous quarter.
This is the first decline in the time series since the second quarter of 2013 for the euro area and the first quarter of 2013 for the EU. In the fourth quarter of 2019, employment increased by 0.3% in the euro area, by 0.2% in the EU, 0.6% in Cyprus and decreased by 0.1% in Greece.
Compared with the same quarter of the previous year, employment increased by 0.4% in both the euro area and the EU, 0.3% in Greece and 2.4% in Cyprus in the first quarter of 2020.
In the first quarter of 2020, Lithuania (+1.6%), Malta (+1.3%) and Croatia (+1.0%) recorded the highest growth compared with the previous quarter. The largest decreases were observed in Spain (-1.0%), Bulgaria (-0.9%), Portugal, Slovakia and Sweden (all -0.5%).
At the level of industries, the sharpest declines were in agriculture (-1.4% in the euro area and -0.8% in the EU) in the first quarter of 2020 compared with the previous quarter. The information and communication sector had the strongest increases (+0.7% and +0.9% respectively)
Based on seasonally adjusted figures, Eurostat estimates that in the first quarter of 2020, 209.1 million people were employed in the EU, of which 160.4 million were in the euro area.
In relation to the COVID-19 pandemic, employment in persons decreased by 0.3 million in the euro area and by 0.2 million in the EU compared with the fourth quarter of 2019.
While the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on employment in persons was mitigated by government support schemes, the impact on hours worked is generally much more pronounced.
The number of hours worked decreased by 3.1% in the euro area and by 2.6% in the EU in the first quarter of 2020, compared to the previous quarter.
The combination of GDP and employment data allows an estimation of labour productivity. The analysis of growth compared to the same quarter of the previous years shows that productivity growth (based on employed persons) fluctuated around 1% for both zones between 2013 and 2018. In relation to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a sharp decline in productivity in the first quarter of 2020 as GDP dropped sharply while the impact on employment in persons was still limited.