Definition: the employment rate is the share of the active employed population in the working age population. The active employed population is defined as the number of persons aged 20 to 64 who worked at least one hour during the reference period, either as a wage earner with an employment contract in the private sector or in the public sector, or as a non-wage earner (self-employed or assistant). It should be noted that the active employed population is also equal to the sum of domestic employment and the balance of cross-border workers (i.e. the difference between the number of Belgian inhabitants working abroad and the number of non-Belgians not living in Belgium and working in Belgium). The working age population is made up of the persons aged 20 to 64.

Employment data used for this indicator are based on the Labour Force Survey (LFS). Statistics Belgium organises this EU-harmonised survey in Belgium and makes the results available, in particular to Eurostat. The survey methodology was reviewed in 2017. Comparison of the 2017 data with previous years should be done with caution. Due to, among other things, changes in the definition of unemployment following a new European framework regulation, the data from 2021 onwards cannot be directly compared with those of 2020. From now on, persons who are temporarily unemployed for more than three months will no longer be counted as employed but as unemployed or inactive, depending on the answers to the questions on job search and availability.

For the indicator Employment gap between people with and without disabilities, not the EAK but the Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC) is used. Indeed, that source includes more detailed information on the severity of disability. The indicator risk of poverty or social exclusion describes this database in more detail, also organised in Belgium by Statistics Belgium.

The data used here come from Eurostat, which publishes detailed and comparable results between EU Member States. Since these data are based on surveys, a margin of uncertainty must be taken into account. This margin of uncertainty increases as the indicator is calculated on smaller sub-populations. The confidence intervals for these data are available on request from Statistics Belgium.

The following breakdowns are available for this indicator: region, sex, age, education, nationality and disability.

Goal: the employment rate must increase.

The Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs adopted by the UN in 2015 include target 8.5: "By 2030, achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and persons with disabilities, and equal pay for work of equal value".

The Federal Long-Term Strategic Vision for Sustainable Development includes the following objectives: "The labour market will be accessible to all and will offer a decent job to each working-age person" (objective 8), "The level of employment will be as stable and high as possible and will respect the principles of a decent job. Every working-age person will have the opportunity to find a paid job" (objective 9) and "Working conditions will be adapted throughout the career to ensure a better quality of life and to be able to work longer" (objective 11) (Belgian Official Gazette, 08/10/2013).

The European Social Summit in Porto on 7 May 2021 agreed new social objectives for 2030 between the European Council, the European Commission, the European Parliament and the social partners, as part of the action plan for the European Pillar of Social Rights (European Commission, 2021) as a follow-up to the Europe 2020 strategy. Those targets were approved by the European Council (European Council, 2021a, 2021b). An employment rate of 78% is targeted in the EU.

The Federal Government agreement of October 2020 (Federal Government, 2020) aims for an employment rate of at least 80% by 2030. The 2023 National Reform Program confirms this (Federal Government, 2023). The following targets have also been agreed for Belgium for 2030: the difference in the employment rate between women and men must be less than 4 percentage points, the difference in the employment rate between persons with and without disabilities must be less than 24.5 percentage points, the employment rate of low-skilled people, persons born outside the EU and persons between 55 and 64 years must be greater than 58.4%, 58.3% and 68.8% respectively (Federal Public Service Social Security, 2023).

UN indicator: The selected indicator does not correspond to any monitoring indicator for the SDGs but is related to target 8.5., i.e. achieve full and productive employment.

Sources

• Belgian Official Gazette: http://www.ejustice.just.fgov.be/cgi/welcome.pl; recherche sur http://www.ejustice.just.fgov.be/doc/rech_f.htm.

• European commission (2010), Europe 2020. A strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:52010DC2020&from=EN (consulted on 19/12/2025).

• European Commission (2021), The European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan, https://employment-social-affairs.ec.europa.eu/policies-and-activities/european-pillar-social-rights-building-fairer-and-more-inclusive-european-union/european-pillar-social-rights-action-plan_en (consulted on 19/12/2025).

• European Commission (2022), The European Pillar of Social Rights: state of play on the national target for 2030, https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?langId=en&catId=89&furtherNews=yes&newsId=10299 (consulted on 19/12/2025).

• Federal Government (2014), Accord de gouvernement du 9 octobre 2014, https://www.dekamer.be/FLWB/PDF/54/0020/54K0020001.pdf (consulted on 19/12/2025).

• Federal Government (2020), Accord de gouvernement - 30 septembre 2020, https://www.belgium.be/sites/default/files/Accord_de_gouvernement_2020.pdf (consulted on 19/12/2025).

• Federal Government (2023), Programme national de réforme 2023, https://commission.europa.eu/system/files/2023-07/Belgium_PNR_2023_FR.pdf (consulted on 19/12/2025).

• Federal Public Service Social Security (2023), The evolution of the social situation and social protection in Belgium 2021, https://socialsecurity.belgium.be/sites/default/files/content/docs/en/publications/silc/silc-analysis-social-situation-and-protection-belgium-2021-en.pdf (consulted on 19/12/2025).