Cyprus in EU top three for firefighters

Within the EU Cyprus has the third highest ratio of professional firefighters to the size of the workforce, according to data just released by Eurostat.

The data concerns the year 2022. In Cyprus, a total of 1,961 persons worked professionally as firefighters out of a labour force of 448,579 people, working out to a ratio of 0.44 per cent.

Across the EU there were 359,780 registered professional firefighters, corresponding to 0.2 per cent of the total workforce in the bloc.

From 2021 to 2022, the number of firefighters in the whole of the EU declined by 2,800.

For the countries for which the EU had reliable data, the highest ratios of firefighters were recorded in Greece, Estonia and Cyprus – all at over 0.4 per cent of the workforce.

The lowest ratios – around 0.1 per cent – were recorded in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

In 2022, the majority of firefighters across the EU fell within the 30 to 49 age bracket.

Eurostat’s release did not provide detailed statistics for each member-state regarding the change in the number of firefighters or their age groups.

The Eurostat data concerns professional firefighters only, and does not take into account volunteers.