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Employment in the EU’s environmental goods and services sector grew at a faster rate than the overall employment rate in the last decade. It increased from 2.02% of total employment in 2010 to 3.1% in 2022, with 6.67 million full-time equivalent employees in the sector. This was mainly due to the creation of jobs related to renewable energy, energy efficiency and waste management. The EU aims to accelerate the green transition of its economy and become carbon neutral by 2050. This is expected to boost jobs in the EU’s green economy in the coming years and further increase the share of green employment in the EU economy.

Figure 1. Employment in the EU’s environmental goods and services sector by domain, 2010-2022

The European Green Deal and the Eighth Environment Action Programme (8th EAP) aim to accelerate the green transition of the European Union’s (EU) economy. The EU’s environmental goods and services sector, also known as the green economy, produces goods and provides services that are used for environmental protection and resource management activities.

Employment in the EU’s green economy as a share of employment in the EU’s whole economy increased by 1.1 percentage points (or 2.7 million full-time equivalents (FTEs)) from 2010 to 2022. This represents an increase of 68.9%, compared with an increase of only 9.7% in employment in the EU’s overall economy in the same period. This shows that pursuing environmental objectives has the potential to create jobs in the EU.

By 2022, the environmental goods and services sector employed 6.67 million people (in FTEs) in the EU, accounting for about 3.1% of total EU employment. The increase in green employment between 2010 and 2022 was largely driven by an increase of 1.26 million FTEs in the number of jobs related to the management of energy resources. For instance jobs related to:

  • producing renewable energy;
  • manufacturing equipment needed to generate renewable energy, such as wind turbines and photovoltaic cells;
  • manufacturing energy-efficient equipment;
  • research and development (R&D) activities, and;
  • installation, consultancy and management services.

The second largest contributor to the increase in green employment was waste management, with the number of jobs in this domain increasing by 938,000 FTEs over the same period. Employment in all other domains increased to varying degrees. Increases were found, from a small base, in the management of water (+49%), wastewater management (+41%), waste management (+41%) and other environment protection domains (+28%).

Steps taken to support the green transition will create more green employment in the EU by 2030, mainly through applying circular economy principles and moving towards a low-carbon economy. It is therefore expected that, through policies, measures and investments, green employment will account for a higher share of total employment in the EU by 2030.

Figure 2. Employment in the environmental goods and services sector as a share of total employment, by EU Member States, 2014 and 2022

Shares of green employment in total employment increased in most EU Member States between 2014 and 2022. Exceptions were in Malta (decrease of 0.4%), Hungary (decrease of 0.1% since 2017), Finland (decrease of 0.1%). The largest increases were reported for Luxembourg (2.5%), Italy (2.2%) and Portugal (2%).

The domains accounting for most employment in the environmental economy differ between EU Member States. During 2022, employment in resource management activities (i.e. management of energy and of water resources) accounted for most environmental employment in Luxembourg (70%), Sweden (68%), Finland (40%). In contrast, employment in environmental protection activities (e.g. waste and wastewater management activities) accounted for most environmental employment in Malta (58%), and Croatia (52%).

Highest shares of green employment in total employment for 2022 were in Luxembourg, Finland and Estonia, with green jobs making up more than 5% of all jobs in these countries. Moreover, a share of close to 5% was reported for Finland and Austria. The lowest shares, of 1.5% or less, were reported for Hungary and Malta.