EU sees 2.06 million young entrepreneurs in 2025 in World Economy News 23/04/2026 As technology reshapes workplaces at an unprecedented pace, some young people are finding their own ways to make a living, turning to self-employment out of creativity and innovation or necessity. In 2025, 2.06 million people aged 20-29 in the EU were self-employed, representing 7.9% of all self-employed people aged 20-64. Among EU countries, the highest shares of young entrepreneurs among self-employed people aged 20-64 were in Slovakia (12.2%), Malta (10.5%) and Romania (10.3%). The lowest shares were in Ireland (5.1%), Bulgaria (5.3%) and Spain (5.9%). Youth employment rate: 65.5% In 2025, the employment rate of people aged 20-29 in the EU was 65.6%, up by 6.3 percentage points compared with 2015. The Netherlands (84.0%) and Malta (82.1%) had the highest employment rates among people aged 20-29, followed by Germany (77.0%). On the other end, Italy registered the lowest rate at 47.6%, followed by Romania (52.0%) and Bulgaria (52.7%). This news article marks World Creativity and Innovation Day, which takes place on 21 April and aims to raise awareness of the role of creativity and innovation in all aspects of human development. If you are interested in youth employment data, check out the mini-webinar ‘Young people on the EU labour market’, taking place on 28 April 2026 at 11:00, on our website and social media platforms. Source: Eurostat 2026-04-23 hellenicshippingnews... window.___gcfg = {lang: 'en-US'}; (function(w, d, s) { function go(){ var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0], load = function(url, id) { if (d.getElementById(id)) {return;} js = d.createElement(s); js.src = url; js.id = id; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }; load('//connect.facebook.net/en/all.js#xfbml=1', 'fbjssdk'); load('https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js', 'gplus1js'); load('//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js', 'tweetjs'); } if (w.addEventListener) { w.addEventListener("load", go, false); } else if (w.attachEvent) { w.attachEvent("onload",go); } }(window, document, 'script')); tweet Share