About 3 million unemployed people aged 15 to 74 in the EU moved into work between the final quarter of 2025 and the first quarter of 2026.
The figure represented 22.9% of those who were unemployed in Q4 2025, according to the Eurostat’s latest labour market flow data released on Friday.
Over the same period, 7.1 million people who were unemployed in Q4 2025 stayed unemployed in Q1 2026, accounting for 53.2% of the total.
A further 3.2 million unemployed people — 23.9% — moved “out of the labour force”, meaning they were neither in work nor actively looking for a job.
People also moved out of jobs and back into work
Among people who were employed in Q4 2025, 2.5 million — 1.2% — were unemployed in Q1 2026, according to Eurostat.
Another 4.4 million people who had been in employment — 2.1% — moved out of the labour force over the same period.
Eurostat also reported movements in the other direction, with 4.2 million people who were out of the labour force in Q4 2025 moving into employment in Q1 2026, while 3.8 million moved into unemployment.
