SΜΕs: Greece is a champion in employment, a laggard in productivity

Small and medium-sized enterprises in the countries of Southern and Eastern Europe present the highest shares of SMEs in employment and at the same time contribute significantly to Gross Value Added, with Greece at the top of the ranking.

Greece, with a share of 84.7%, is the champion in the contribution of SMEs to employment, but has one of the lowest per capita incomes in Europe. It is followed by Cyprus (81.8%), Estonia (81.2%), Latvia (76.4%), Portugal (76.3%), Malta (76.1%), Bulgaria (75.4%) and Italy (75%).

In contrast, in the rich countries of Northern and Central Europe, small and medium-sized enterprises present employment shares that are lower than the EU-27 average (65.1%), such as France (54.4%), Sweden (57.3%) and Germany (58.4%).

The highest shares of the Gross Value Added of SMEs in the GVA of all enterprises, which significantly exceed the EU-27 average (53.6%), are held by countries with relatively low per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in real terms, such as Estonia (81.1%), Cyprus (78.8%), Malta (72.8%) and Latvia (71.7%).

The above data are recorded in Alpha Bank’s latest Economic Bulletin for the World Economy and show that small and medium-sized enterprises play a crucial role in the production of the entire spectrum of economic activity.

However, although SMEs constitute the backbone of the European economy, they lag significantly in terms of productivity compared to large enterprises.