More than one in five employed people aged 15 to 64 in the EU usually worked during weekends in 2025.
The share was 21.3% across the bloc, the EU’s statistics office Eurostat reported on Friday.
Weekend work was most common among service and sales workers, where 47.6% usually worked weekends, followed by skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers at 47.2% and people in elementary occupations at 25.7%.
Employees were less likely than self-employed people to work weekends, with 18.5% of employees usually doing so.
By contrast, 45.8% of self-employed people with employees — often described as employers — usually worked weekends, alongside 35.9% of self-employed people without employees, known as own-account workers. The figure was 45.1% among contributing family workers.
Wide differences between EU countries
Greece recorded the highest share of employees usually working weekends at 31.5%, followed by Cyprus at 31.3% and Malta at 29.2%, according to Eurostat.
The lowest rates among employees were in Lithuania at 3.0%, Poland at 4.2% and Hungary at 6.2%.
Among self-employed people with employees who worked weekends, Greece again had the highest share at 75.0%, followed by Belgium at 65.9% and France at 61.0%. The lowest shares were in Hungary at 9.9%, Slovakia at 15.0% and Poland at 15.1%.
Eurostat said the figures were published to mark International Workers’ Day on 1 May.
