“As technology reshapes workplaces at an unprecedented pace, some young people are finding their own ways to make a living, turning to self-employment out of creativity and innovation or necessity”. This is written in a piece by Eurostat that was issued today to coincide with World Creativity and Innovation Day, which takes place on 21 April and aims “to raise awareness of the role of creativity and innovation in all aspects of human development”. In 2025, 2.06 million people aged 20-29 in the EU were self-employed, representing 7.9% of all self-employed people aged 20-64, Eurostat reports. Among EU countries, the highest shares of young entrepreneurs among self-employed people aged 20-64 were in Slovakia (12.2%), Malta (10.5%) and Romania (10.3%). The lowest shares were in Ireland (5.1%), Bulgaria (5.3%) and Spain (5.9%). In 2025, the employment rate of people aged 20-29 in the EU was 65.6%, up by 6.3 percentage points compared with 2015 The Netherlands (84.0%) and Malta (82.1%) had the highest employment rates among people aged 20-29, followed by Germany (77.0%). On the other end, Italy registered the lowest rate at 47.6%, followed by Romania (52.0%) and Bulgaria (52.7%).