Off the wire
• 2nd LD Writethru: Five suspects arrested in W Germany over Paris attacks  • 1st LD Writethru: Police arrest three suspects in W Germany over Paris attacks  • China Voice: China's growth injects vitality into global governance  • Host Indonesia leads 13th World Wushu Championship  • Gunmen kidnap mother of Nigerian Olympic soccer team coach  • Death toll rises to 31 in China landslide  • Feature: China-built wells provide safe drinking water to Mozambicans  • Britain to build national museum to tell story of migration, new world settlers  • Palestine calls upon world to recognize Palestinian state  • Kiev says EU finalizes free trade deal with Ukraine  
You are here: 　 Home

Nine out of 10 enterprises in EU employed fewer than 10 persons: official data

Xinhua, November 17, 2015 Adjust font size:

More than 90 percent of enterprises in the European Union were micro-enterprises employing less than 10 persons, illustrating their important role in the economy, the EU's statistical office Eurostat said Tuesday.

Eurostat published the data on the occasion of European small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) week from Nov 16 to 22, which aims to promote entrepreneurship.

Figures showed that in 2012, of the 22.3 million enterprises in the EU's non-financial business economy, an overwhelming majority (92.7 percent) were micro-enterprises (with 0 to 9 persons employed) accounting for about 29 percent of employment.

Out of this figure, 7.1 percent were small and medium enterprises (with 10 to 249 persons employed) accounting for about 38 percent of employment, and 0.2 percent were large enterprises (with 250 or more persons employed) accounting for about 33 percent of persons employed.

Among all EU member states, the highest share of micro-enterprises in the non-financial business economy was recorded in Greece (96.7 percent), while the lowest was recorded in Germany.

In a number of southern EU member states, figures showed micro-enterprises accounted for the largest share of persons employed with proportions above 40 percent.

At the EU level, large enterprises were the largest employers (accounting for 33.0 percent of all persons employed), followed by micro-enterprises (about 29 percent), small enterprises (20.8 percent) and medium enterprises (17.2 percent). Endit