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European Labour Market Barometer

The European labour market barometer provides an outlook for the development of the European labour market in the next three months. In January 2025, component A (unemployment) stands at 98.2 points; component B (employment) stands at 100.2 points; the European labour market barometer averages both components and stands at 99.2 points. Values above 100 signal a positive outlook, values below 100 signal a negative outlook.
European Labour Market Barometer, January 2025
Infographic: A line chart shows the European labour market barometer and its component A (unemployment) and component B (employment) as monthly time series from 2018 until 2025.
Time Series European Labour Market Barometer 2018 until January 2025

Accessible table of the time series of the European Labor Market Barometer

European Labour Market Barometer: Outlook gloomy

The European Labour Market Barometer falls by 0.2 points compared to the previous month to 99.2 points in January. The leading indicator of the European Network of Public Employment Services and the IAB has thus remained below the neutral mark of 100 points for 1.5 years now. The component forecasting unemployment remains clearly in negative territory at 98.2 points. After a decline of 0.5 points, the employment component registers a barely positive 100.2 points in January. “The gloomy outlook currently hangs over European labour markets like a dark cloud,” explains Enzo Weber, IAB head of forecast.

The time series of the European Labour Market Barometer, including its components for all 16 participating employment services, is available at www.iab.de/Presse/elmb-components. More information on the European Labour Market Barometer is available in our Magazine IAB-Forum: Launch of the “European Labour Market Barometer"

Run by the European Network of Public Employment Services and the Institute for Employment Research (IAB), the European Labour Market Barometer is based on a survey of the local or regional employment agencies in 16 PES services. A leading indicator of employment and unemployment in labour markets, the survey has been carried out jointly by the employment services and the IAB since June 2018. Agencies are asked to assess both the unemployment and employment outlook for the next three months, resulting in two components and one barometer for each PES. The European barometer is then derived from these national scores in the form of a weighted average.

Taken from: Labour market barometer helps predict (un)employment trends | European Social Fund Plus (europa.eu)

Release Dates

  • 26 February 2025
  • 26 March 2025
  • 28 April 2025
  • 26 May 2025
  • 26 June 2025
  • 29 July 2025
  • 27 August 2025
  • 25 September 2025
  • 28 October 2025
  • 26 November 2025
  • 30 December 2025

Contact

Professor Enzo Weber
Dr Christian Hutter

Period surveyed

June 2018 until January 2025

Date of publication

2025/1/29

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Rights of use

The data on the European Labour Market Barometer are published under the following Creative Commons license: Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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