Malta remains the EU country with the biggest gap in the percentage of working men and women, new Eurostat figures show.

While 81.4 per cent of men in Malta aged 20-64 are employed, a mere 53.6 per cent of women are – a difference of 27.8 per cent. Italy has the second-widest gap, with a 20 per cent difference.

The large gender employment gap contrasts sharply with that in Finland (2.1 per cent), Lituania (2.4 per cent) or Latvia (4 per cent).

Despite being far behind many other EU states, Malta has made significant inroads in increasing its female workforce participation rate. In 2005 just 36.4 per cent of women aged 20 to 64 were employed. 

The Eurostat figures also indicate that the EU’s employment rate is gradually recovering from the spike that plagued it following the 2008 financial crisis. 70.1 per cent of people aged 20 to 64 are currently employed – up from 2014 but still marginally lower than the 70.3 per cent peak in 2008. The EU has set itself a target of reaching a 75 per cent employment rate by 2020.

The employment rate of older workers continues to rise across the EU. While it stood at just 38.4 per cent in 2002, by 2015 it had reached 53.3 per cent.
Compared with 2014, the employment rate for those aged 20 to 64 increased in 2015 in almost every Member State, and most strongly in Hungary, Estonia, Spain, Bulgaria, Latvia, Ireland and Slovakia.

Greece (54.9 per cent), Croatia and Italy (both 60.5 per cent) and Spain (62 per cent) are the EU’s employment laggards, with the lowest rates.