Southern Europe has again been ravaged by wildfires and scorching temperatures, bringing firefighters into the spotlight.
Among EU countries for which reliable data are available, Greece, Estonia, and Cyprus registered the highest share of firefighters in their national employment, with shares of above 0.4%, while the Netherlands and France had the lowest shares at around 0.1%.
Specifically, in 2022 a total of 1,961 persons in Cyprus were working as firefighters compared to a total workforce of 448,579 persons (0.44%).
In 2022, there were 359 780 professional firefighters in the EU, representing 0.2% of total EU employment.
Compared with 2021, there was a decrease in the total number of firefighters of 2 800 people.
At EU level, in 2022, most of the firefighters were between 30 and 49 years old, with the age groups 40 – 44 years (65 730 people) and 35 – 39 years (59 810 people) having the highest numbers. There were also 45 280 firefighters between 15 and 29 years old, and 91 570 were 50 years and over.
Data on firefighters in 2022 from the EU Labour Force Survey are not shown for Denmark, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta and Austria because of very low reliability; and are flagged for low reliability for Bulgaria, Croatia, Latvia, Slovenia and Slovakia.
