Employment rate (20–64)

% of population aged 20–64

improving recent trend, computed over 2021–2025

the vertical dotted line marks a methodology change

: rank 26 of 27 in the EU (2025)

How many working-age adults actually work. The rate climbs slowly but stays below the European average, with large gaps for women and in rural areas. That is a growth reserve Romania is not using.

Source: Eurostat · Dataset: lfsi_emp_a · Open source

Where Romania stands in the EU (2025)

Romania stays near the bottom of the European employment ranking: an unusually large share of working-age adults are not working, or work outside the formal economy.

Compared with Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria

the vertical dotted line marks a methodology change

The neighbours have climbed above the European average; Romania has stayed below it. The gap to Hungary, whose labour market tightened visibly after 2010, widened precisely in the years when Romania's economy was growing fastest.

The gaps between Romania's regions (2025)

Administrative boundaries: © EuroGeographics.

The shaded band spans, year by year, the distance between the highest-value region and the lowest. the vertical dotted line marks a methodology change

The internal gap separates the capital from the rest of the country more than east from west. And the regional rate in turn hides the difference between cities and villages, where informal work and subsistence agriculture remain widespread.

Source: Eurostat · Dataset: lfst_r_lfe2emprt · Open source

Source and method

Across the period shown: from 53.9 % in 2009 to 69.0 % in 2025.

Source: Eurostat
Dataset: lfsi_emp_a — Employment and labour force by sex and age - annual data
API address: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/api/dissemination/statistics/1.0/data/lfsi_emp_a?format=JSON&lang=en&indic_em=EMP_LFS&sex=T&age=Y20-64&unit=PC_POP&geo=RO
Retrieved on: 2026-07-08

Download the data: ocupare.json · detail/ocupare.json