Labour market flows in Q1 2025

Between the fourth quarter of 2024 and the first quarter of 2025, 3 million unemployed people aged 15-74 in the EU (23.8% of all unemployed in the fourth quarter of 2024) found a job. During this period, 6.6 million (52%) remained unemployed and 3.1 million unemployed people (24.2%) transitioned out of the labour force.

This information comes from recently published data on labour market flows in the first quarter of 2025. The article presents a handful of findings from the more detailed Statistics Explained article.

Source dataset: lfsi_long_q

The visual and the table give an overview of all possible transitions and show the changes in labour market status. In the visual, the figures for employment, unemployment and out of the labour force refer to the number of people remaining in each status between the two quarters, while the arrows indicate the number of people moving from one status to another.

Source dataset: lfsi_long_q

Of those in employment in the fourth quarter of 2024, 2.5 million (1.2%) became unemployed in the first quarter of 2025, and 4.4 million (2.1%) transitioned out of the labour force.

From those counted as out of the labour force in the fourth quarter of 2024, 4.7 million (4.1%) moved into employment in the first quarter of 2025 and 4.1 million (3.5%) transitioned into unemployment.