Labour force participation

Labour force activity rates increased in most western European countries between 1995 and 2001. The most notable exceptions are Malta and Turkey with a considerable decrease in activity rates. The increase has been mostly due to increasing participation rates of women, while for men, in half of these countries, the participation rates have even slightly decreased. In most central and eastern European countries the economic activity rates have decreased both for men and women (the decrease being often larger for men). In the CIS countries the changes were more varied. In a majority of the ECE countries women constituted a larger proportion of the total labour force in 2001 than in 1995 - between 40 and 50%. Two countries - Malta and Turkey - have considerably less women in the labour force – fewer than 30% (Table 4.3).

Employment ratio

Total employment as a percentage of the total population is an indicator of a country’s capacity to support its population. Western European countries like Iceland, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands have the highest employment/population ratio in the ECE region, whereas the lowest ratios are in Bosnia and Herzegovina, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro, and Tajikistan (Figure 4.4). As the economic activity rates for these countries are not considerably lower than average, the reasons for the low ratio can be high unemployment (as in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia and Montenegro, see Table 4.14), but also the high proportion of non-working age population and therefore a high dependency ratio (as in Tajikistan, see Figure 1.2).v

Employment by economic sector

The general trend between 1995 and 2001 is a continuous increase in the share of total employment in the service sector at the expense of the agricultural and industrial sectors. There are exceptions, and the share of total employment in agriculture is still high in many countries of central and eastern Europe and the CIS, such as Albania (72%), Georgia (62%), Kyrgyzstan (53%), Republic of Moldova (51%), Armenia (44%) and Romania (43%) (Table 4.5).

Status in employment

Women are less likely than men to be employers or self-employed workers. In no country does the proportion of women among these groups reach 50 %, but it is over 40 % in the Republic of Moldova (48 %), Ukraine (48 %), Russian Federation (45 %) and Kyrgyzstan (42 %) (Figure 4.8). In all countries, except for Georgia and Turkey, the majority of employed people work as employees. In Georgia and Turkey, employees also constitute the biggest group, but the share of self-employed and family workers put together is even bigger (Table 4.7).

Occupations

In the United States the proportion of women among legislators, senior officials and managers is 54 %. In Lithuania the proportion women in these occupations is also rather high at 47 %. In the rest of the ECE region there is clear majority of men among legislators, senior officials and managers, with the lowest recorded proportion of women being in Turkey at 8% (Figure 4.10).

Working hours and part-time employment

Part-time employment remains a female domain, but varies considerably among countries. In Germany, Belgium and Norway more than 30 % of all employed women work part-time. In the Republic of Moldova the proportion is less than 1 %. In most of the western countries, the trend has been increasing since 1990. In northern Europe and the United States, the share of women working part-time has decreased but it still remains quite high. Only in the United States is the proportion of employed men working part-time over 10 %. (Figure 4.11). In general, employed persons in central and eastern Europe have longer working hours than employed persons in western Europe (except in Greece and Iceland). In all countries men spend more time in paid work than women, but the difference between women and men is more pronounced in western Europe than in central and eastern Europe. Iceland is the country with the highest rate of employed persons with a second job (Table 4.12).

Unemployment

A large majority of countries in western Europe and North America had lower unemployment rates in 2001 than in 1995. In central and eastern Europe and the CIS countries the picture is more varied, but the majority of countries had higher unemployment rates in 2001 than in 1995. In most countries there are small differences between women and men in unemployment rates. However, in Armenia, Greece, Italy and Spain, considerably more women are unemployed than men. In Lithuania the situation is the other way round – the unemployment rate for men is 5.5 percentage points higher than for women. (Table 4.14 and Figure 4.15).

Youth unemployment

In a majority of ECE countries there is a higher youth unemployment rate for women than for men, but in many countries the differences are not large and may be subject to annual variations based on which sectors of the economy are hardest hit by unemployment. In 2001 the difference between youth unemployment rates for women and for men were highest in Greece and Spain, where the youth unemployment rates for women were respectively 14.7 and 10.9 percentage points higher than for men, and in Lithuania where it was 11.3 percentage points higher for men than for women. The youth unemployment rate is generally higher than the overall unemployment rate throughout the ECE region (Table 4.17).

Long-term unemployment

In some countries more than half of all the unemployed have been so for more than 12 months. The recorded long-term unemployment rate is highest in Albania with 92 %, followed by Armenia (78 %), Slovenia (65 %), Italy (63 %) and Bulgaria (62 %) (Table 4.18).

Expenditure on labour market programmes

The expenditure on labour market programmes varies substantially between countries from almost 5 per cent of GDP in Denmark to less than 0.4 percent in the United States. Furthermore, in most countries unemployment compensation constitutes half or more of the total labour market programme expenditure (Figure 4.20). (These data are available only for OECD member countries).

Tables and charts

The following tables are available in the restricted area (if you do not have a user ID and password, register here.):

4.1 World labour force by region, 1950 to 2000

4.2 Total employment growth, 1992-2001

4.3 Labour force economic activity rates by sex and percentage of women in the labour force, 15 years and older

4.4 Total employment as a percentage of population, 2001

4.5 Employment by economic sector, 1995 and 2001

4.6 Percentage of labour force in agriculture, 2001

4.7 Status in employment, 2001

4.8 Gender differential among employers and own-account workers, 1995 and 2001

4.9 Employment by major occupational groups, 2001

4.10 Percentage of women among legislators, senior officials and managers, 2001

4.11 Part-time employment by sex for selected countries, 1990 and 2001

4.12 Average number of hours worked per week in selected countries, 2001

4.13 Average annual hours worked in selected countries

4.14 Unemployment rates, 1990 and 1995-2001

4.15 Unemployment rates by sex, 2001

4.16 Unemployment by economic sector and work experience, 2001

4.17 Youth unemployment rates by sex (15 to 24 years of age)

4.18 Long-term unemployment (12 months and more)

4.19 Unemployed by level of educational attainment, 2000

4.20 Public expenditure on labour market programmes as a percentage of GDP and unemployment compensation as a part of this, 2001