The number of people employed or self-employed in the EU’s sports sector has recovered since the dip occasioned by lockdown policies, according to a recent report in late September by the EU’s statistical body, Eurostat. That number is back to 1.37 million, as in 2019. It was down to 1.31 million in 2020.
At present, the sports sector accounts for 0.7 percent of EU employment, defined as including “sport-related occupations in the sports sector,” such as “professional athletes, professional coaches in fitness centres, non-sport occupations in the sports sector, e.g., receptionists in fitness centres, and sport-related jobs outside the sports sector, e.g. school sport instructors.” (The definition differs for France and Spain.)
Within the EU, Sweden (1.4%), Finland (1.3%), Spain (1.1%) and France (1.1%) have the most sports employees as a percentage of the population, while Bulgaria (0.4%), Slovakia (0.4%), Poland (0.4%), Malta (0.3%) and Romania (0.2%) have the fewest.
The non-EU European countries rate as follows: Iceland (2.7%), Switzerland (1.1%), Norway (1.1%) and Serbia (0.6%). Eurostat reports nothing on Russia.
Men have a slightly greater predominance in the sports industry (55%) than they do in the economy as a whole (54%). Nearly a third, 32 percent, of sports employees are aged 15 to 29; this figure drops to 17 percent for the economy as a whole. People aged 30 to 64 account for 65 percent of sports employees, versus 80 percent overall.
About 47 percent of sports employees have achieved mid-level (upper secondary or post-secondary non-tertiary) education.
