The number of people having a job in the 27 member states of the EU amounted to about 218.5 million in 2007. Thus, the employment rate for people aged between 15 and 64 amounted to 65.4% which corresponds to an increase by 3.3 percent as compared to the year 2000 and 0.9% in comparison with the year 2006. In the year 2007 the employment rate for Germany was 69.4% which is above average, but not top in the EU27.

The employment rate among people aged between 15 and 64 in the year 2007 was above 70% in the following member states: in Denmark (77.1%), the Netherlands (76.0%), Sweden (74.2%), Austria (71.4%), Great Britain (71.3%), Cyprus (71.0%) and Finland (70.3%). It was below 60% in Malta (55.7%), Poland (57.0%), Hungary (57.3%), Italy (58.7%) and Romania (58.8%).

Among women the overall employment rate amounted to 58.3% in the EU27 in the year 2007 whereas in the years 2000 and 2006 the rates were 53.6% and 57.3% respectively. The highest rates were registered in Denmark (73.2%), Sweden (71.8%), the Netherlands (69.6%) and Finland (68.5%), the lowest in Malta (36.9%), Italy (46.6%) and Greece (47.9%).

The smallest differences between employment rates of men and women were to be found in Finland (4%), Sweden (5%) and Lithuania (6%). The difference was highest in Malta (37%), followed by Greece (27%), Italy (24%) and Spain (22%).

The employment rate among elderly EU citizens also changed. Thus for people aged between 55 and 64 the rate increased from 36.8% in the year 2000 and 43.5% in 2006 to 44.7% in the year 2007. The rate in this age group was highest in Sweden (70.0%), Estonia (60.0%) and Denmark (58.6%) and lowest in Malta (28.3%), Poland (29.7%) and Luxembourg (32.0%).

In the year 2007 the percentage of EU27 citizens working part-time amounted to 18.2%. Working part-time was most widespread in the Netherlands (46.8%), Germany (26.0%), Great Britain (25.5%) and Sweden (25.0%) and least popular in Bulgaria (1.7%), Slovakia (2.6%), Hungary (4.1%) and the Czech Republic (5.0%).

The above figures were published yesterday by the European Statistical Office (Eurostat).