Despite the challenges, the European job market continues to show signs of resilience. According to data, in the third quarter, the occupancy rate grew in the community block as a whole, albeit slightly. And Portugal was among the Member States where this indicator improved between July and September.

“In the third quarter of 2024, the employment rate of people aged 20 to 64 in the European Union was 75.9%, which corresponds to an increase of 0.1 percentage point compared to the previous quarter”.

On the other hand, in Latvia and the Netherlands, this rate did not change and in 15 countries there was a decline in employment. The largest decrease was recorded in Luxembourg (one percentage point), followed by Slovenia (0.9 percentage points and Estonia (0.7 percentage points).

Between the second and third quarters, 23.4% of unemployed people in the European Union found a new job opportunity. At issue are 3.1 million people, according to data released by Eurostat. In the opposite direction, 1.3% of employees became unemployed (2.6 million people).

After all, 199.3 million people remained employed between the aforementioned quarters, while 6.7 million remained unemployed.

On the other hand, 3.4 million of the unemployed and five million of the employed left the labour force, that is, they were left without a job and did not look for a new opportunity.

Among the Member States, it was in Malta that employment grew the most. At issue is a 1.4 percentage point increase in the employment rate between the second and third quarters. Completing the podium are Romania (with an increase of 0.6 percentage points), Ireland, Italy and Cyprus (all with an increase of 0.5 percentage points).

In addition to these countries, five other employment increases were recorded between July and September, that is, in total, ten Member States saw the rate improve. And Portugal was part of this group, with an increase of 0.6 percentage points.