Four Portuguese Regions Are Already Past the Country's Own 2030 Jobs Target, While Madeira and the Azores Trail the EU One

Four of Portugal's nine regions already had a higher share of people in work in 2025 than the 80 percent the country has set itself for 2030, while the two island regions remained below the lower 78 percent target set for the European Union as a whole. The figures come from Eurostat, the EU's statistics office, which published a regional snapshot on 6 October.

Across the EU, the employment rate for people aged 20 to 64 rose to 76.1 percent in 2025, the highest since the series began in 2009 and 1.9 percentage points short of the 2030 target in the European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan. Eurostat counted 115 of the EU's 244 regions at or above 78 percent, and listed Portugal, with 7 of its 9 regions, among the clusters where the target has already been reached.

The regional figures

The employment rate is the share of all residents aged 20 to 64 who are in work. The numbers are 2025 annual averages from the EU labour force survey, taken from Eurostat's regional dataset lfst_r_lfe2emprt. Portugal as a whole reached 79.6 percent, up from 78.5 percent in 2024.

• Grande Lisboa: 81.9 percent (81.1 in 2024)
• Algarve: 80.6 percent (79.8)
• Centro: 80.5 percent (78.5)
• Alentejo: 80.2 percent (79.7)
• Península de Setúbal: 79.9 percent (78.8)
• Oeste e Vale do Tejo: 78.8 percent (76.7)
• Norte: 78.2 percent (77.4)
• Madeira: 77.2 percent (76.3)
• Azores: 76.7 percent (74.8)

Every region improved on 2024. The largest gains were in Oeste e Vale do Tejo (2.1 points), Centro (2.0 points) and the Azores (1.9 points). Oeste e Vale do Tejo moved from below the EU target to above it in a single year.

Close to Portugal's own target

The 78 percent figure is the EU-wide goal. Each member state also set its own national target under the same action plan, and Portugal's is higher. According to the European Commission's page on the European Social Fund Plus in Portugal, the country aims to raise its employment rate to 80 percent by 2030, alongside targets for adult training and for reducing poverty and social exclusion.

At 79.6 percent, Portugal finished 2025 0.4 points short of that national goal. Grande Lisboa, the Algarve, Centro and Alentejo are already beyond it; Península de Setúbal is 0.1 points away.

Where Portugal sits in the EU

Portugal had the 12th highest employment rate of the 27 member states in 2025. Malta led at 83.6 percent, followed by the Netherlands (83.4 percent) and Czechia (82.9 percent). Italy had the lowest rate, at 67.6 percent, with Romania at 69.0 percent and Greece at 71.0 percent.

At regional level, Eurostat named six regions above 85 percent, led by the Polish capital region, Warszawski stołeczny, at 86.9 percent, and Praha at 86.0 percent. At the other end, the French outermost regions of Mayotte and Guyane had the lowest rates in the EU, at 36.9 and 50.0 percent. Around a quarter of EU regions, 64 in all, were below 74 percent; no Portuguese region was among them.

The gap between men and women

The dataset also splits the rate by sex. In Portugal, 82.4 percent of men and 77.0 percent of women aged 20 to 64 were in work in 2025, a gap of 5.4 points. Across the EU the gap was 9.6 points (80.9 percent against 71.3 percent). Women's employment in Portugal rose by 1.3 points over the year, a little faster than men's (1.0 point).

The regional picture is uneven. Women's employment was highest in Grande Lisboa (80.5 percent) and the Algarve (79.2 percent), and lowest in the Azores (73.9 percent), Madeira (74.4 percent) and Norte (74.7 percent). The Azores recorded the biggest rise for women, from 71.1 percent in 2024. Madeira was the only region where the rate for women fell, from 74.7 percent.

What the figures mean if you are looking for work

• What the rate measures: it is the share of the working-age population in a job, not a count of vacancies or a measure of pay. A high regional rate shows that most adults there are working; it does not on its own show where jobs are easiest to find.
• Annual averages: the regional figures are averages for the whole of 2025 and do not capture seasonal swings, which matter in tourism areas such as the Algarve.
• The latest national reading: the Instituto Nacional de Estatística (National Statistics Institute) estimated on 30 September that unemployment was 5.7 percent in August 2026 (provisional), 6.3 percent for women and 5.2 percent for men, and 19.8 percent for people aged 16 to 24. INE uses a different age band (16 to 74) for these monthly estimates, so they do not compare directly with the Eurostat rates above.
• The islands: Madeira and the Azores remain the only Portuguese regions below the EU target, although the Azores closed part of the gap in 2025.

The employment rate is a different measure from the share of residents who are of working age, which Eurostat published separately and we reported on 6 October. For the national trend in jobs and output, see our reports on second-quarter job growth and on productivity.

With five years to go, Portugal needs 0.4 more points to reach its own target. The 2026 regional figures from the labour force survey will show whether Norte, Madeira and the Azores, the three regions with the lowest rates, keep closing the gap.