Which European capital city is the best for finding a good job?

Is it easy to find a good job in your city? Your answer is likely to depend on where you live. Factors such as the country’s economic situation, unemployment  rates and whether or not it’s a capital city can significantly influence job opportunities. 

Across 83 cities in Europe, less than half of residents think it is easy to find a good job, but opinions vary widely according to the European Commission’s report on the quality of life in European cities in 2023.

In Palermo, for instance, only 4% of people share this optimism while, in Prague, a striking 79% feel confident about job prospects.

So, how do local residents’ perceptions differ on this issue, and what might be the possible reasons behind these huge gaps?

The survey covered the EU, EFTA, several candidate countries, and the UK. While some countries are represented by only one city, others have multiple cities included, with some featuring as many as six or seven cities. Therefore, country-based comparisons might not reflect the full picture.

Which capital city is the best for finding a good job?

Looking at the capital cities, the percentage of people who believe it is easy to find a good job ranges substantially. Prague leads with the highest rate at 79%, followed by Bratislava (72%), Oslo (69%), and Stockholm (68%).

Rome has the lowest rate at 20%, followed by Athens (21%) and Madrid (24%).

Among Europe’s top five economies, Paris and London lead with 61% of residents expressing optimism about job opportunities, closely followed by Berlin at 57%. In contrast, the capitals of Spain and Italy rank in the bottom third, reflecting much lower confidence in the availability of good jobs.

At the capital city level, southern and south-eastern European countries show significantly less confidence in finding good jobs, while northern and central-eastern Europe tend to have more optimistic views on job availability.

These trends become even more obvious when all 83 cities are considered, with an even wider gap between them.

Italian cities dominate the bottom rankings

Prague (79%) continues to have the highest percentage of people who believe it’s easy to find a good job in their city, while in Italy’s Palermo, almost no one shares this prospect, with only 4% feeling the same.

Besides Palermo, other Italian cities dominate the lowest rankings, with four out of the bottom five having 20% or fewer residents believing it’s easy to find a good job.

People in the Spanish cities largely believe that it is not easy to secure a good job where they live, as fewer than one in four residents feel otherwise in all four cities included in the survey. 

Among the top five economies, Germany has the highest average rate of 60% across its cities, led by Munich at 72%, which ranks third overall on the entire list.

This average is 63% in the UK, 47% in France, 24% in Italy, and 21% in Spain, with all countries represented by at least four cities.

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According to the report, overall, only one in four people in cities of southern EU Member States found it easy to get a job. In contrast, more than half of those in western (53%) and northern cities (55%) shared this view. In eastern cities, about half of the residents felt the same.

Possible reasons for the significant gap between cities

“Unemployment rates tend to be higher in the cities where the score is lower,” Pawel Adrjan, economist and director of EMEA & APAC Economic Research at Indeed, told Euronews Business. 

For example, Adrjan highlighted, Palermo, with the lowest score in the survey (4%), also had the highest unemployment rate at 17% in 2023, where data is available. In contrast, Prague, which had the highest score of 79%, reported an unemployment rate of just 1.9%, the second lowest among the surveyed cities.

“Overall, there is a statistically significant negative relationship across cities. Some 49% (almost half) of this variation is explained by unemployment differences,” he added. 

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According to Eurostat, Italian and Spanish cities generally had higher unemployment rates in 2023.

Quantity and quality of jobs

According to Indeed’s Adrjan, the remaining half of differences can be due to other factors. Quantity and quality of available jobs can explain part of this difference. The level of job vacancies varies. 

As the survey asked about “good” jobs,  this could be interpreted differently across cultures. 

“Factors like real wages, job security, work-life balance, and career progression opportunities are not reflected in overall unemployment rate statistics but will impact people’s perception of what the labour market can offer them,” Pawel Adrjan told.

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He also noted that local economic sentiment and political factors, including media coverage, can further influence residents’ perceptions.

Disparities between cities within a country

The report highlighted that cities offer more specialised and higher-paying jobs compared to rural areas. In some countries, the share of people who think that it is easy to find a good job varies substantially between cities.

For example, in Czechia, Slovakia, and Poland, the capital cities rank among the highest in the survey, while other cities in these countries score significantly lower. The gap is above 35 percentage points in some cases. 

Similarly, there are large disparities among cities in Italy, Belgium, Hungary, and Turkey.

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Good jobs linked to life and financial satisfaction

The report indicates that the perception of good job opportunities is correlated with overall satisfaction with living in a city. In cities where more people believe it’s easy to find a good job, higher levels of satisfaction with city life are observed. However, this correlation is moderate, at 51%.

Euronews Business found a stronger link between the perception of good job opportunities and satisfaction with personal job situations, with a correlation of 70%. When people feel it’s easy to find a good job, their satisfaction with their financial situation also tends to improve.

The survey gathered responses from over 71,000 people across 83 European cities, with at least 839 residents participating from each city.