Unemployment in Europe - Statistics & Facts
Unemployment has been one of the most consistent social and economic problems in Europe since the 1990s, with the period following the global financial crisis, great recession, and Eurozone crisis in the 2010s marking a historical high-point for joblessness in most European countries. Unemployment is a measure of the number of people who are involuntarily without employment, that is, it measures people actively seeking work and unable to find it. In recent years there has been a turnaround in European unemployment, with the unemployment rate in the European Union hitting an all-time low in 2023 following a brief spike during the COVID-19 pandemic, falling to below six percent in the second quarter of the year.
