The Warsaw region, which includes Poland’s capital and its suburbs, had the highest employment rate in the European Union last year, according to new Eurostat data.

The employment rate among people aged 20-64 in the region stood at 86.9%, more than 10 percentage points above the figure for the EU as a whole. It was also the highest recorded for Warsaw since data began to be collected in 2013.

Last year, only four EU regions had employment rates of at least 85%. Warsaw was followed by Prague in the Czech Republic at 86%, Finland’s Åland Islands at 85.5%, and Utrecht in the Netherlands at 85.4%.

The EU average stood at 76.1%, slightly below the target of 78% the bloc set for itself for 2030.

At the other end of the scale, 64 of the EU’s 244 regions had employment rates below 74% last year. The lowest was recorded in France’s overseas departments of Mayotte (36.9%) and French Guiana (50%), followed by Italy’s Calabria (50.3%), Campania (50.8%) and Sicily (51.4%).

After Warsaw, the second-highest employment rate in Poland was recorded in the central Łódź province (80.8%) while the lowest was in the southeastern Subcarpathian province (73.2%). The figure for the country as a whole was 78.8%, which was only the 13th highest in the EU.

In addition to topping the overall employment rate ranking, Warsaw also had the third lowest rate of youth employment (for people aged 15-29) at 3.9%, higher only than Yugozapaden in Bulgaria (3.8%) and Zeeland in the Netherlands (3.6%).

And it had the third-highest rate of employment among people with tertiary education (93.5%), behind only Portugal’s Região Autónoma dos Açores (94.6%) and Yugozapaden (93.6%).

The most recent Eurostat figures, from August, show that Poland’s unemployment rate (3.3%) was the second-lowest among all member states and well below the EU-wide figure of 6.2%.

The strong labour market reflects years of economic growth, rising wages and increased employment. However, Poland’s ageing and shrinking population is creating labour shortages and encouraging companies to invest more heavily in automation.

At the same time, job creation is slowing, while some industries – including manufacturing, automotive, furniture and construction materials – are coming under pressure, according to experts.

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Main image credit: Maciej Cisowski/Unsplash