Bulgaria, Romania among countries with most employees in medium-sized enterprises

The percentage of citizens working in 2017 in medium-sized enterprises of the 27 member states of the European Unions was 16.9 percent, with the highest level recorded in Luxembourg (25 percent), Lithuania (23 percent), Estonia and Latvia (both with 22 percent), Bulgaria (21.2 percent) and Romania (20.5 percent), the data published on Tuesday by Eurostat showed.

Moreover, the percentage of those working in small-sized enterprises stood at 50 percent in 2017, the highest level being recorded in Portugal (61 percent), Spain (58 percent), Latvia and Estonia (both with 57 percent) and Slovakia (56 percent). In Romania the percentage was 44.4 percent.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with less than 250 employees are seen as a pillar of European economy, providing jobs and growth opportunities. However, because of the crisis caused by the novel coronavirus pandemic, they might be the most affected by the slowdown of the economic activity.

In 2017, most companies (98.9 percent) in the sector of non-financed enterprises in the EU had less than 49 employees (small companies), followed by medium-sized companies (with 50-249 employees), accounting of 0.9 percent of the total enterprises. In contrast, only 0.2 percent of the total enterprises had 250 employees or more, being classified as large companies.

In 2017, there were 22.2 million SMEs in the sector of non-financial enterprises in the EU, contributing to over half (56 percent) of the total added value (3.5 billion euro).

Moreover, in 2017, a number of 83.9 million people worked in SMEs, accounting for 67 percent of the total employees. Over half of them worked in the following activity areas: distributive trade (20.7 million persons), industry (15.8 million persons) and constructions (10.2 million persons).