Social Standards

Topics | Labour Market

Employment in agriculture is changing

With the acceptance of the accession countries into the European Union, the employment rate has dropped and the unemployment rate has risen. Agriculture is a special problem. Whereas the share of those working in agriculture stood at 4.1% in the EU-15, the proportion in the accession countries amounts to 13.2% (20.8% including Romania and Bulgaria). Following the enlargement (EU 25), the share is now 5.5% (EU 27: 7.6 %)[1].

The agricultural sector in the accession countries is undergoing a significant restructuring process, which is exerting structural pressure on the rural areas of these countries.

Employment in the agriculture of Europe in 2005 (Figures in 1,000)
	BE	DE	EE	SF	IT	LT	NL	AT	SL	CZ
Workforce		1,303	24	99	1,402	238	295	200	59	168
Employees	50	191	22	52	996	22	78	19	59	168
Full-time	15	131	22	6	107	20	28	9	1
Part-time/seasonal	35	60	1	20	874	2	40	10	4
From the country				18				2	4
From the EU		289		1				6	0
From other countries				1	60			1	0
Unemployed			25			20	5	4	39

Note on the data: The figures have been taken from various sources.

More or less everything is counted and registered in extensive statistics in the agriculture of the European Union; still, the picture of those working in this sector is incomplete. There are no reliable numbers. The following details from various sources are not complete; however, they do highlight major developments in the agricultural labour market of the EU.

The number of those permanently employed and subject to social insurance contribution amounts to more or less 1.9 million people in the extended EU. Nearly half of them work in the accession countries (0.8 million). There are over 1.1 million employers in the EU agriculture.

The service area in agriculture could not be registered in a differentiated manner within the framework of this study, as there is not reliable data material available yet. Still, new jobs for qualified agricultural workers have been created through so called “agricultural contractors” in countries, such as Germany and the Netherlands. Statisticians often add them to the tertiary (service) sector, however.

The number of seasonal workers in the EU agriculture is rising and estimated at approx. 4.5 million in 2006, comprising 420,000 from European third countries and 50,000 Non-Europeans. The accession countries are employing legal and illegal seasonal workers already today, for instance, in Russia, the Ukraine and Belarus. This trend is clearly emerging also in the “old” member states. The number of legal seasonal workers exceeds that of the full-time employed workers. In most accession countries, the situation is different. In those countries, there are (still) more full-time workers than seasonal workers. In some countries (e.g. Slovenia), this situation is changing already.

Employers and employees in the agricultural sector (year 2000)

	Employers	Full-time employees	Seasonal workers
Belgium	4,471	9,086	35,591
Bulgaria		374,000	1,000,000
Denmark	38,000	28,000	2,500
Germany	50,000	198,000	297,500
Estonia	3,000	17,000	3,000
Finland	15,000	4,900	41,500
France	141,256	217,939	979,885
Greece	292,626	10,607	1,352,073
Italy	246,758	92,654	817,035
Latvia		9,600	5,000
Lithuania	3,300	23,800
Malta	1,035	2,000
Netherlands	20,000	88,000	100,000
Austria	10,597	18,132	28,421
Poland	3,500	40,000
Portugal	23,388	61,163	181,443
Sweden	28,000	28,000	20,000
Slovakia	3,940	84,290	10,000
Slovenia	127	197	1,382
Spain	100,000	130,000	679,000
Czechia	ca. 5000	168,000	110,000
Hungaria	60,000	177,000	74,000
United Kingdom	78,000	112,300	51,308
	1,122,998	1,894,668	5,789,638

[1] Commission Communication, Second Progress Report on Economic and Social Cohesion, COM (2003) 34. final p.14