EU Enlargement: unemployment rate of potential future European Union members 2022

As of 2022 there are eight countries which are official candidates to join the European Union, with two additional countries which have been identified as potential future candidates by the European Commission. To join the EU countries must fulfill the Copenhagen Criteria, conditions which seek to ensure sufficient convergence in economic, political, and institutional/administrative matters between the candidate country and the EU before they are integrated into the bloc. Unemployment is a serious issue in many of the candidate countries for EU membership, with Moldova being the only country being below the EU average in this metric. In particular the countries of the Western Balkans, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzogovina, Albania, and Kosovo have higher than average unemployment rates. Serbia performs comparatively well compared to the other former Yugoslavian countries, with an unemployment rate of 9.47 percent. Nevertheless, this is high by EU standards. While political and institutional concerns such as corruption, human rights issues, and the rule of law are seen as the main stumbling block for these countries to enter the EU, economic issues such as unemployment may also come to the fore in the coming years. Many citizens of current EU countries fear that newer member states will drive down wages, and this is particularly so for countries with large numbers of unemployed workers. High unemployment rates may also signal that these countries will experience a migration wave to other EU member states once their citizens attain the right to free movement within the union.