site.btaBulgaria Has Second Lowest Share of People Employed in Sports Sector in EU in 2023

In 2023, Bulgaria registered the second lowest share (0.37%) of people employed in the sports sector, Eurostat reported on Friday. Only Romania recorded a lower share of 0.28%.

The highest shares of people working in the field of sports were registered in Sweden (1.33% of total employment), followed by Denmark (1.25%) and Spain (1.16%). 

In 2023, 1.55 million people were employed in the sports sector in the EU, representing 0.76% of total employment. Compared with 2022 (1.51 million), the number of people employed in the sports sector increased by 2.2%. 

Employment in the sports sector differs from total employment in terms of age composition. More than one-third (37.4%) of people employed in sport were aged 15 29, which is more than twice the share reported in overall employment (17.4%) for the same age group in 2023. 

The majority of those employed in sport were aged 30-64, accounting for 59.1% of all sport workers, which was 20.6 percentage points (pp) less than the share of the same age group in the total employment (79.7%). People aged 65+ accounted for 3.5% in the sports sector and 3.0% in total employment.

More men were employed in the sports sector than women (55.2% and 44.8%, respectively), leading to a slightly larger gender employment gap of the population employed in this sector compared with overall employment (53.6% and 46.4%, respectively). 

In terms of educational attainment level, sports workers exhibited characteristics similar to those in the total employment. Nearly half (45.9%) of those employed in sport had a medium level of education (International standard classification of education (ISCED), levels 3-4), 0.3 pp more than in total employment. 

Those with higher (tertiary) education (ISCED levels 5-8) made up 39.6% of sport workers, which was 1.8 pp higher in sport than in total employment. 

People with lower education (ISCED levels 0-2), accounted for 14.4% of employment in sport (2.1 pp lower than in total employment).