The labour market in the sport sector: a European research

Abstract

The analysis of the employment and the labour force in the sport sector has implications that have received little attention in the public debate and in the scientific investigation. Therefore, the EU funded project named «A European Sector Skills Alliance for Sport » (ESSA-Sport) offered the opportunity to implement quality research and consultations, to identify the realities, trends and challenges facing the sector, and to undertake the first real analysis of the sport labour market in Europe. The methodology adopted was based on two main axes: the analysis of the micro-data of the Labour Force Survey (LFS) released from Eurostat for the years 2011-2016; a secondary anal-ysis of national sources, databases and research papers combined with con-sultations with national experts of the 28-EU countries. Results show that employment in the sport sector represents today, in Europe, an important element of the Member States’ economy. The sector is very dynamic: in the period 2011-2016 the sport employment in the 28 EU Member States shows an average annual rate of 2.2 %. In the future, the sectors of education, health care, etc. are likely to grow, and all these sectors are clearly linked with the sport sector that will see a further area of growth.