Eurostat: employment rate, record high in Europe. Regions of Sicily, Campania and Calabria at the bottom of EU ranking The employment rate in the EU is growing. Indeed, it reached its highest level in 2023 since the European Statistical Office Eurostat began collecting and publishing data. The European average rate stood at 75.3%, up 0.7% compared with 2022. On a regional basis, the Polish capital region of Warszawski Stołeczny topped the ranking (86.5%), followed by Bratislavský kraj in Slovakia (85.8%) and Trier in Germany (85.4%). The three regions at the bottom of the ranking were instead all Italian, where “less than half of the core working-age population was employed”, Eurostat pointed out: Calabria (48.4%), Campania (48.4%) and Sicily (48.7%). Italy stood out in 2023 even for its highest regional disparities, with a coefficient of variation of 16.3%, ahead of Belgium (8.5%) and Romania (7.7%). By contrast, the countries with the most homogeneous employment rate at regional level were Portugal, Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands, where the variation was 2% or less.Redazione