Employment trends in the financial sector in the 15-39 and 55-74 age groups in the EU28 in the period 2007-2017

The main labour market trends over the last decade are analysed on data from the Eurostat-Labour Survey. In particular, the following phenomena were ana-lysed: a) employment in financial and insurance activities; b) general unem-ployment; c) activity rates; d) fixed-term emunem-ployment; e) part-time employment in financial and insurance activities; f) involuntary part-time employment (see Table 2). Particular attention to two age groups: employees under 40 and those over 54 (see table below).

Table 2 – Indicators analysed and target groups

Indicators Target-Groups

Employment rate Young Population (15-39)

General unemployment rate

Activity rate Older Population (55-74)

Fixed-term employment rate Part-time employment rate

Involuntary part-time employment rate

3.1. The employment rate

As regards the share of employed persons in the financial sector in the EU28 as a percentage of total employed persons, there has been a slight decrease in the decade under review, albeit very differentiated between individual countries.

As regards the comparison between the different age groups in the EU28, the share of people employed in the financial sector is higher among employees under 40 than among those over 54 (see graph below). However, in the former group there is a slight decrease in this percentage over the last decade.

Graph 4 – EU28 - Financial sector employees out of total employment by age group (% values)

Source: Eurostat data processing

The differences between EU28 countries are high: Luxembourg has the highest youth employment rate (age group 15-39), while Turkey has the lowest share.

The shares of youth employment in Finland, Romania and Bulgaria are also ra-ther small.

The employment rate in the financial sector of workers in the older age group (55-74) is significantly lower (2.4%) than that of the younger age group (3%).

The only exception is Luxembourg where the employment rate is higher for older workers.

3.2. The unemployment rate

As far as the unemployment rate of the general population is concerned, almost all European countries recorded an increase from 2010 to 2014, due to the global financial crisis. This had a particular impact on southern European countries such as Greece and Spain. Therefore, the highest unemployment rate in 2017 is in Greece (21.5%) and Spain (17.3%), with high rates in Croatia and Italy with 11.3% and Cyprus (11.1%). In contrast, the group of countries with the lowest unemployment rate is the Czech Republic (2.9%) and Germany (3.8%).

The effects of the financial crisis hit the youngest group of the working age population harder than the over 54s (10.0% compared to 2% in the EU-28 in 2017). However, there are significant differences between countries. The coun-tries with the highest youth unemployment rates were Greece (27.0%), Spain (20.8%), Italy (17.6%), Croatia (15.1%) and Cyprus (14%).

The unemployment rate of people aged 55-64 is much lower than that of young people in all EU28 countries (5.9% compared to 10%). The country with the lowest unemployment rate in this age group is the Czech Republic.

Greece is also the country with the highest unemployment rate for this age group.

3.3. The Activity rate

In general, this rate has remained stable over the last decade in most of the countries analysed. However, there are significant differences between coun-tries, e.g. Turkey shows an activity rate of around 55%, while Sweden, Estonia and the Netherlands exceed 70%.

Taking into account the youth age group, aged 15-39, activity rates are, in gen-eral, slightly lower (64.6%) than for the population as a whole (69.8%) for the EU-28 countries in 2017. However, there are some differences between

coun-tries. For example, Ireland (87.6%) has the highest activity rate among young people, while Italy (58.6%) had the lowest, again in 2017.

Overall, the activity rate of people aged 55-64 (60.6% in 2017) is lower than the activity rate of young people in the EU-28. However, among countries, the ac-tivity rate of older workers increased from 2007 to 2017, with the exception of Lithuania.

Finally, for older people in the 65-74 age group, the rate is much lower than for other age groups and the population as a whole (9.9% in 2017). The country with the highest rate is Estonia with 26.3%, while Spain and Belgium had the lowest rate (3.9%).

3.4. The fixed-term employment rate

The proportion of temporary workers in the financial sector in relation to the total number of temporary workers is about 1.5 in the European Union. This percentage is relatively lower than in other sectors, as the share of employees in financial and insurance activities in total employment in the EU-28 is around 3%. However, there are important differences between countries. The country with the highest temporary employment rate was Poland in 2017 with 3.5%.

The countries with the lowest rate were Lithuania and Croatia with 0.6%.

Analysis of the available data shows that temporary work is more frequent among young people than among employees over 54 years of age. Indeed, the temporary employment rate in the EU-28 for the 55-74 age group stops at 1%

in 2017.

3.5. The part-time employment rate

The part-time employment rate is lower in the financial sector than in other sectors. In particular, according to Eurostat-LFS data, in the EU28 this rate is 20.1% for 2017 in all sectors, while it is 14.1% for financial and insurance activ-ities in the same year. In Europe, the highest rate was found in the Netherlands (30.4%), while Croatia recorded the lowest rate in 2017 (2.2%). From 2007 to 2017 in all European countries, overall, there was an increase in part-time work in the financial sector (13.4% in 2008 compared to 14.1% in 2017).

This rate is slightly lower in the 15-39 age group in the EU28 (10.4% compared to 14.1% of the total population in 2017). Although this rate appears rather stable over the period studied, there are many differences between countries.

Turkey had the lowest rate in 2017 (2.8%), while the highest rate is in the Netherlands (30.7%).

The level of part-time work in 55-74 year old is almost double the correspond-ing value in the youth group (20.7% compared to 10.4%) and was more than 5 percentage points higher than the total population (14.1%).

Among all countries, Malta had the highest rate of part-time work for older workers (41.7%), while Spain had the lowest rate in 2017 (5.1%).

In general, part-time work seems to be more frequent among employees aged over 54 than those under 40, with important differences between countries.

3.6. The involuntary part-time employment rate

Involuntary part-time work, measured as the percentage of underemployed part-time workers in total part-time jobs, is around 25% in the European Un-ion, taking into account all economic activities for the total population from 2007 to 2017. Nevertheless, there are some significant differences between countries. In particular, some Mediterranean countries such as Greece, Spain, Italy and Cyprus almost tripled the value of the EU-28 in 2017.

In contrast, Estonia was the country with the lowest involuntary part-time rate (7%) in 2017 together with the Netherlands (7.9%) and the Czech Republic (7.4%).

However, in the EU-28 countries, among young people in the 15-39 age group, this rate is slightly higher than for the total population (28.6% compared to 25.1%). Although there is great variability between countries, Mediterranean countries have the highest rate here too. Thus, in the case of Greece, 74.2% of part-time work is involuntary. Similarly, this rate is 61.9% in Spain, 70.4% in Italy and 71.3% in Cyprus. In Romania, this rate is also much higher than the corresponding rate for the Romanian population as a whole (67.1% compared to 47.2%).

The lowest rate of involuntary part-time work in the EU-28 countries is in the 55-74 age group (16.7% compared to 25.1% of the total population). As in the other cases, some differences are between countries. The highest rate is in Bul-garia (53.5%) and it is noteworthy that this rate increased over the years from 35.6% in 2007 to 53.5%. In particular, in the case of Belgium and the Czech Republic there was a decrease from 2007 to 2017. Slovenia, on the other hand, recorded an upward trend.

In conclusion, involuntary part-time work seems to be a more important prob-lem for the younger group of part-time employees than for those over the age of 54. The percentages vary substantially from one country to another.

4. Medium to long-term employment trends in the financial sector as a