Unemployment trends in the European Union Member States, April 2025

Released: 11 June 2025

In April 2025 (based on seasonally adjusted data),  the unemployment rate in the European Union was 5.9%, the same as a month earlier and fell by 0.1 percentage points compared with April 2024. Unemployment was lowest in Czechia and Malta (both 2.7%), highest in Spain (10.9%) and Finland (9.1%).

In April 2025, the unemployment rate¹ in Hungary was 4.3%, the same as a year earlier and 0.1 percentage points higher than in March 2025. In terms of unemployment rate, Hungary was ranked 10th best among the Member States. Among the V4, unemployment was higher than in Hungary in Slovakia (5.3%) and lower in Poland and Czechia (3.3% and 2.7% respectively).

The number of unemployed in Hungary, based on seasonally adjusted data,  was 213 thousand in April. In the period February to April 2025, the average duration of job search increased from 9.5 months to 13.1 months compared to a year earlier, and the share of long-term unemployed (at least one year) was the same at 35%.

According to the administrative data of the National Employment Service, by the end of April 2025 the number of registered jobseekers decreased by 1.8% compared to the previous month, and decreased by 1.0% to 228 thousand compared to a year earlier.

According to the March 2025 forecast of the National Bank of Hungary, the unemployment rate will be between 4.2–4.3% in 2025 and 3.6–4.1% in 2026. The OECD forecast puts the rate at 4.4% by the second quarter of 2025, after which it expects a slow decline and estimates the rate at 4.3% for 2025 as a whole and 3.9% for 2026. Trading Economics forecasts² the domestic unemployment rate to rise to 4.7% by the fourth quarter of 2025 and then to fall to 4.0% by the first quarter of 2026, while the IMF forecasts a rate of 4.6% for 2025 as a whole and 4.2% for 2026.