Growth, employment and the single market – why does it matter?
By removing cross-border barriers to the movement of goods, services, people and capital, the single market increases competition and generates allocative efficiency. This helps increase the level and quality of growth and employment in the EU economy.
The indicators in this section measure the performance of the single market by looking at its growth both in terms of value added and employment. Important social indicators that look at the progress achieved in terms of type of employment (e.g. permanent or temporary), wage development and safety at work usefully complement the analysis of performance.
In 2021 the EU industry and services sectors recovered quickly (industry growth: 7.3%, services growth: 4.7%) from the fall driven by the pandemic containment measures in 2020. They grew faster than in the last decade.
Employment grew by 0.7% in 2021, i.e. stronger than in Japan and the UK, but far below the growth experienced in the USA. In the EU, employment growth over the last decade has been driven by large enterprises, while SME employment has remained fairly stable over the last years.
Between 2014 and 2021, net earnings in the EU for the three categories of households considered (single with no kids, one-earner couple with two kids, and two-earner couple with two kids) displayed a 16% growth. Other social indicators point to an overall improvement as regards the creation of permanent employment, health and safety at work, and gender balance.
Value Added in Industry
This indicator shows the trends in the annual percentage growth of the value added in industry, including construction, for the EU, China, Japan and the USA.
Source: World Bank national accounts
Value added in services
This indicator shows the trends in the annual percentage growth of the value added in services for the EU, China, Japan and the USA.
Source: World Bank national accounts
Value added by size of enterprise
This indicator measures the total value added at factor cost, since 2008. Data are provided by business size (0-9 employees, 10-49, 50-249, 250+). Data for 2020-2022 are based on now-casts and forecasts on the basis of Eurostat structural business statistics and economic forecasts from the European Commission's annual macro-economic (AMECO) database.
Value added is expressed in current prices, so higher inflation leads to larger increases in value added.
Source: data for 2020-2022 are estimates produced by the Joint Research Centre, based on 2008-2019 figures from the structural business statistics database as well as provisional data for 2020-2021 from the national accounts database and the short-term business statistics database (all Eurostat). 2017-2018 saw a break in time series as Eurostat switched from enterprises as a legal unit to enterprises as a statistical unit, leading to some jumps particularly for large enterprises that were previously classed as separate legal units.
Gross domestic product per person employed
This indicator measures the trends in annual growth rates of labour productivity per employee for the EU, China, Japan and the USA.
Source: AMECO (latest figures are estimates)
Share of high growth enterprises
This indicator measures the share of EU high-growth enterprises, defined as enterprises experiencing 10% annual employment growth rates within a 3-year period, excluding micro-enterprises. The share is calculated by dividing the number of high-growth enterprises by the number of active enterprises with at least 10 employees in NACE Rev. 2 B-N_X_K642 sectors.
Higher shares of high-growth enterprises indicate a stronger ability of businesses to grow and create jobs.
Source: Eurostat, business demography, 2019 data
Gross fixed capital formation
This indicator shows the trends in the growth rates of gross fixed capital formation (compared to the same quarter of the previous year) for the EU, the UK, Japan and the USA.
Source: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Employment and social indicators
Employment growth
This indicator measures the annual percentage growth of total employment for the EU, Japan, the USA and the UK.
Source: AMECO figures for 2022, 2023 and 2024 are estimates.
Number of persons employed by size of enterprise
This indicator measures the total number of persons employed since 2008. Data are provided by business size (0-9 employees, 10-49, 50-249, 250+). Data for 2020-2022 are based on now-casts and forecasts on the basis of Eurostat structural business statistics and economic forecasts from the Commission's AMECO database.
Source: data for 2020-2022 are estimates produced by the Joint Research Centre, based on 2008-2019 figures from the structural business statistics database as well as provisional data for 2020-2021 from the national accounts database and the short-term business statistics database (all Eurostat). 2017-2018 saw a break in time series as Eurostat switched from enterprises as a legal unit to enterprises as a statistical unit, leading to some jumps particularly for large enterprises that were previously classed as separate legal units.
Permanent, temporary and self-employment
This indicator shows the change (in millions of people) in permanent, temporary and self-employment of people between 15 and 64 years old compared to same quarter of the previous year. Data are not seasonally adjusted.
Source: EU Labour Force Survey
Wage levels and development
This indicator measures annual net earnings in purchasing power standard for persons earning 100% of the average earnings of a specific category of households.
The left chart provides data for the EU, the US, the UK and Japan (data for the UK refers to 2019).
The right chart details the EU growth rates for the three categories of households.
International comparison
EU growth rates since 2014
Source: Eurostat
Health and safety at work
This indicator shows the percentage of persons employed or previously employed affected by accidents at work (left chart) and work-related health problems (right chart).
The charts show the EU average and the figures for the Member States with the smallest (min) and the biggest (max) values, respectively.
Accidents at work
Work-related health problems
Employment by gender
This indicator shows the employment rate of the population of working age (20-64 years; left axis) and the gap (right axis) between males and females.
Source: Eurostat