In 2023, labour market slack accounted for 12.0% of the extended labour force, meaning that 27.1 million people aged 15 to 74 years in the EU were offering an unmatched supply of labour on the market, either because they were unemployed, underemployed, seeking a job even if not immediately available to work or immediately available to work but not seeking for. Labour market slack helps understand how much workforce is available but not fully productive. It is used to analyse employment dynamics and the overall health of an economy, since a low slack suggests the economy optimally exploits the supplied labour input.
Among EU countries, in 2023, labour market slack was highest in Spain (20.2% of the extended labour force), Italy (17.7%), Sweden (16.4%) and Greece (16.3%). On the other hand, it was lowest in Poland (4.8%), Malta (5.2%), Hungary (6.0%), Czechia (6.4%) and Slovenia (6.5%).
Source dataset: lfsi_sla_a
In terms of components of the labour supply, unemployment represented 5.8% of the extended labour force, while people available to work but not seeking represented 2.8% and underemployed part-time workers 2.5% of the extended labour force. People seeking work but not immediately available were 0.9% of the extended labour force.
Looking at each component, data shows that in 24 EU countries, the shares of unemployed people are the biggest among the 4 components. The highest shares of unemployed people were observed in Spain (11.7% of the extended labour force) and Greece (10.8%).
The exceptions were the Netherlands and Ireland where the shares of underemployed people working part-time were the highest slack component at 5.1% and 4.5%, respectively; and Czechia (3.2%) where the share of people seeking work but not immediately available was the highest among all the components.
Source dataset: lfsi_sla_a
Source: Eurostat, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/product?code=ddn-20241029-2
