August 9, 2026

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August 9, 2026

Newsletter

The European Post

Policy • Diplomacy • Strategic Insight

LATEST
New EU Gas Market Rules Take Effect With Consumer SafeguardsDeforestation Regulation Holds Its December Deadline Despite CutsDigital Omnibus Delays Europe’s High-Risk AI Deadline to 2027Europe’s Schools Confront a Widening Basic Skills GapRule of Law Report Finds Progress but Trust Still LagsIRIS2 Gains 66 Satellites as Brussels Signs the Rollout DealNature Restoration Plans Come Due as Member States Race a DeadlineECB Rates Hold at 2.25 Percent as Frankfurt Waits on the DataEU Budget Talks Turn to Cohesion as Ireland Takes OverWildfire Response Stretches Europe’s Emergency Fleet ThinCan Europe’s Quantum Plan Match Its Big Ambitions?Armenia Edges West as Moscow’s Grip Slips AwayEurope Inherits the World’s Aid Bill It Cannot Fully PayAir Passenger Rights Get Their First Overhaul in Two DecadesErasmus Opens a 5 Billion Euro Round for Skills and MobilityCeuta Crisis Pushes the EU Toward Faster Migrant ReturnsBulky Parcels Face a Packaging Crackdown From August 12Can Europe Build Its Drone Wall Before 2030 Arrives?Indonesia’s Trade Deal With Europe Nears Its Final SignatureEurope Leans on Beijing to Keep Climate Talks Alive Before AntalyaNew EU Gas Market Rules Take Effect With Consumer SafeguardsDeforestation Regulation Holds Its December Deadline Despite CutsDigital Omnibus Delays Europe’s High-Risk AI Deadline to 2027Europe’s Schools Confront a Widening Basic Skills GapRule of Law Report Finds Progress but Trust Still LagsIRIS2 Gains 66 Satellites as Brussels Signs the Rollout DealNature Restoration Plans Come Due as Member States Race a DeadlineECB Rates Hold at 2.25 Percent as Frankfurt Waits on the DataEU Budget Talks Turn to Cohesion as Ireland Takes OverWildfire Response Stretches Europe’s Emergency Fleet ThinCan Europe’s Quantum Plan Match Its Big Ambitions?Armenia Edges West as Moscow’s Grip Slips AwayEurope Inherits the World’s Aid Bill It Cannot Fully PayAir Passenger Rights Get Their First Overhaul in Two DecadesErasmus Opens a 5 Billion Euro Round for Skills and MobilityCeuta Crisis Pushes the EU Toward Faster Migrant ReturnsBulky Parcels Face a Packaging Crackdown From August 12Can Europe Build Its Drone Wall Before 2030 Arrives?Indonesia’s Trade Deal With Europe Nears Its Final SignatureEurope Leans on Beijing to Keep Climate Talks Alive Before Antalya

Employment Rose Again in 2025 Even as Growth Slowed, Data Shows

Anita Reed
Legislative Affairs Editor

Riga: Europe’s labour market kept adding workers last year, even as the wider economy lost momentum, according to figures the EU statistics office quietly refreshed at the start of June. The update to its dataset on employment by main industry shows the bloc’s employment index, measured by the number of persons in work, edging up to 111.1 in 2025 from 110.6 the year before. The baseline for the series is set at 100, so the reading confirms that head-count employment now stands roughly a tenth higher than its reference point.

The increase is modest, but its direction matters. Forecasters had warned that sluggish industrial output, soft external demand and the lagged effect of higher borrowing costs could finally stall hiring after several years of expansion. Instead, employers across most member states held on to staff and, in services especially, continued to recruit. The pattern echoes a now-familiar feature of the post-pandemic European economy: output growth and job growth have decoupled, with firms reluctant to shed workers they struggled to find.

That resilience carries a cost. When employment rises faster than production, productivity per worker stagnates or slips, a dynamic that has worried the Commission and the European Central Bank alike. Weak productivity erodes the room for non-inflationary wage gains and complicates the bloc’s stated ambition of closing the competitiveness gap with the United States and China. Economists reading the latest index caution that a labour market this tight can also keep services inflation stubbornly elevated, a concern echoed in recent price data.

The headline figure conceals wide divergence beneath it. Southern member states that suffered the deepest labour-market scars a decade ago have posted some of the strongest recent gains, while parts of the industrial core have seen manufacturing rolls thin even as health, hospitality and public administration expand. Demographic pressure adds another layer: with the working-age population shrinking in several countries, simply maintaining current employment levels increasingly depends on older workers staying longer and on migration filling vacancies.

For policymakers, the numbers are a double-edged reassurance. A labour market that refuses to crack offers a buffer against recession and underpins household spending. But it also signals that Europe’s growth problem is one of output and investment, not jobs. The data feed directly into debates now running in parallel over the next long-term budget, over how to revive private investment, and over whether the bloc’s skills shortages can be eased fast enough to matter.

The statistics office stressed that the index is provisional and subject to revision as national accounts are finalised. Even so, the message for now is consistent with what employers report on the ground. Europe is working; the harder question is whether all that work is producing enough.

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