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.

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.

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).

International comparison: the employment rate of people aged 20 to 64 in the EU27 is practically always higher than in Belgium throughout the 2000-2021 period and the tendencies run parallel. The growing trend noticed in Belgium between 2000 and 2008 was also observed in the EU27. In the EU27, this rate increased from 65.5% to 69.5% in this period. Then it decreased to 67.5% in 2013 and rose again to 73.1% in 2019. In 2020, the employment rate in the EU27 was 72.3% and in 2021 again 73.1% (70.6% in Belgium). When Member States are divided into three groups, Belgium is part of the group with the poorest performance in 2020. In that year, Netherland ranked first with 81.7% and Greece last with 62.6%.

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

• General

  • SDGs, Sustainable Development Goals: United Nations (2015), Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 25 September 2015, document A/RES/70/1.

  • Indicators: United Nations (2017), Work of the Statistical Commission pertaining to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 6 July 2017, document A/RES/71/313.

  • UN Sustainable Development: https://sdgs.un.org/ (consulted on 18/01/2023).

  • UN Sustainable Development Goal indicators website: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/ (consulted on 18/01/2023).

• Specific

  • Belgian Official Gazette: http://www.ejustice.just.fgov.be/cgi/welcome.pl; recherche sur http://www.ejustice.just.fgov.be/doc/rech_f.htm (consulted on 24/09/2020).

  • 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 24/09/2020).

  • European Commission (2021), Factsheet: The European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan, https://www.2021portugal.eu/en/porto-social-summit/news/porto-social-summit-all-partners-commit-to-2030-social-targets/ (consulted on 02/05/2023).

  • 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 02/05/2023).

  • Federal Government (2014), Accord de gouvernement du 9 octobre 2014, https://www.dekamer.be/FLWB/PDF/54/0020/54K0020001.pdf (consulted on 24/09/2020).

  • Federal Government (2020), Accord de gouvernement - 30 septembre 2020, https://www.belgium.be/sites/default/files/Accord_de_gouvernement_2020.pdf (consulted on 30/10/2020).

  • Federal Government (2023), Programme national de réforme 2023, https://commission.europa.eu/system/files/2023-05/2023-Belgium-NRP_fr.pdf (consulted on 02/05/2023).

  • 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 02/05/2023).

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