The Industrial Sector in the European Union

The primary purpose of this paper is to conduct an in-depth analysis of the importance of the industrial sector for the EU economy overall and for the economies of all EU Member States separately in terms of the respective shares of the industrial sector in the creation of each country's gross value added (GVA), employment and labour productivity, as well as the international competitiveness of various subcategories of industry in the years 2004–2013. The analysis has revealed that despite the growing weight of services in GVA creation in the EU-28, industry still remains an important sector of the EU economy, accounting for almost 20 % of total EU-28 GVA, 58.5 % of total EU-28 export, and roughly 16 % of total EU-28 employment in 2013. It should be stressed, though, that its significance for individual EU Member States differs widely. It is a relatively more important driver of GVA and jobs in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) Member States than in the EU-15 countries. The reverse is true with respect to labour productivity and competitiveness in the industrial sector, with labour productivity being far higher in the EU-15 than in the CEE Member States. The highest, and steadily rising, labour productivity in industry can be found in Luxembourg, Denmark and Sweden, while in contrast the CEE Member States, namely Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary, had the lowest industrial labour productivity. Concurrently, however, the latter countries recorded a far stronger growth in this respect than the EU-15, which should be assessed positively.