69% of people aged 20 to 64 were employed in the first quarter of 2021. This is what emerged from the new results of Statbel, based on the Labour Force Survey. The ILO unemployment rate rises to 6.7%. Between the first quarter of 2020 and the first quarter of 2021, the number of employed persons declined the most in the ‘horeca’ sector (-40.4%).
Other sectors where the number of employed persons decline strongly are “Other service activities” (-19.9%) and “Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles” (-8.7%). Sectors that have seen their employee numbers grow include ‘Extraterritorial organisations and bodies’ (+18.4%), the sector ‘Information and communication’ (+9.7%) and ‘Financial and insurance activities’ (+7%).
In 2021, a new European framework regulation (EU Regulation 2019/1700) came into force. The questionnaire has been thoroughly revised, among others, to bring it into line with the adjusted operational definitions of employment and unemployment of the International Labour Office (ILO). Therefore, the employment rate of 2021 cannot simply be compared with the figures before 2021. One of the most important changes: from this year on, those who have been temporarily unemployed for more than three months will be counted among the unemployed or inactive, rather than the employed, depending on the answers to the questions on job search and availability.
In addition to this adaptation to the new definitions of employment and unemployment, the new framework regulation also sought to bring more uniformity in the way certain concepts are measured, which should ensure more comparable results at European level. To make a number of changes comprehensible, we publish both the official figure and an alternative, more comparable figure for the most important indicators.