Latvia's profit share in the EU remains relatively modest
Today, 9:41
In 2024, non-financial corporations—businesses whose primary activity is not financial in nature—in the European Union posted a profit share of 40.1%, down 1.6 percentage points from the prior year. The profit share reflects the portion of a business’s value added that goes to capital through gross operating surplus, as opposed to wages and salaries. These figures come from Eurostat, the EU’s statistics agency.
Eurostat notes that a lower profit share can signal a more labor-intensive economy, or lower profitability, while a higher share may indicate greater profits or an economy that relies more on capital-intensive production.
Historical context shows profits fluctuating over time. In 2004, the EU’s non-financial corporations had a profit share of 40.4%. It rose to 42.1% in 2007, but afterward entered a period of decline, hitting a two-decade low of 39.5% in 2012. Since then, the trend has been uneven, with a rise from 40.2% in 2020 to 42.1% in 2021, followed by gradual declines to 41.9% in 2022, 41.7% in 2023, and 40.1% in 2024.
Source dataset: nasa10ki (Eurostat data portal).
Among EU member states, 2024’s highest profit shares were recorded in Ireland (74.9%), Malta (56.4%), and Slovakia (48.9%). Ireland’s elevated figure is largely attributed to the presence of large foreign-owned multinationals with high capital intensity.
Conversely, the lowest shares were observed in France (32.2%), Slovenia (33.4%), Portugal (34.5%), with Latvia and Austria tied at 35.6%.
For comparison, Lithuania stood at 41.6% and Estonia at 40.0%.
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