New Companies Creating Fewer Jobs Than The EU Average

The rate of companies in Luxembourg that were freshly formed was just about the EU27 average, but they employed relatively fewer people, according to data released this week.

“In 2017, the number of new enterprise births in the European Union as a proportion of the total number of active EU enterprises stood at 9.3%,” Eurostat reported. The figure for Luxembourg was 9.2%.

The EU countries with the highest “enterprise birth rate” were Lithuania (19.7%), Portugal (15.8%) and Slovakia (13.7%). The lowest proportions were recorded in Sweden (6.6%), Belgium (6.4%) and Greece (4.5%).

Eurostat stated: “The employment generated by these newly created enterprises stood at 2.4% of total employment in the EU in 2017, ranging from 5.2% in Portugal to 1.2% in Germany and the Netherlands.”

The job creation figure for Luxembourg, 1.7%, was below the EU average. Companies formed that year represented 2.7% of total jobs in France, 2.1% in Belgium and 1.2% in Germany.