Malta, along with Estonia, registered the highest growth in employment from among the 28 EU member states during the first three months of the year.

The data was published by Eurostat, the EU’s statistical agency.

The number of persons employed increased by 0.4% in both the euro area (EA19) and the EU28 in the second quarter of 2018 compared with the previous quarter, Eurostat said, quoting national accounts estimates.

In the first quarter of 2018, employment increased by 0.4% in the euro area and by 0.5% in the EU28. These figures are seasonally adjusted.

Compared with the same quarter of the previous year, employment increased by 1.5% in the euro area and by 1.4% in the EU28 in the second quarter of 2018 (after +1.5% in both areas in the first quarter of 2018).

Eurostat estimates that, in the second quarter of 2018, 238.9 million men and women were employed in the EU28, of which 158 million were in the euro area. These are the highest levels ever recorded in both areas. These figures are seasonally adjusted.

These data on employment provide a picture of labour input consistent with the output and income measure of national accounts.

Among Member States for which data are available for the second quarter of 2018, Estonia and Malta (both +1.3%), Poland (+1.2%), Cyprus (+1.0%) and Luxembourg (+0.9%) recorded the highest increases compared with the previous quarter.

A decrease was observed in Latvia, Portugal, Romania (all -0.3%) and Bulgaria (-0.2%).