45% of Bulgarian Pensioners Still Working – Eurostat

Some 45% of Bulgarian pensioners continue to work, the European Union's statistics office Eurostat has claimed.

In 2012, the year for which latest EU labor market statistics were available, about 15% of all employed Bulgarian pensioners continued working mainly for financial reasons, while less than 10% did so mainly for non-financial reasons such as job satisfaction.

The percentage of working pensioners is also high in Estonia, where 27% 65 to 69 year olds were employed, Romania at 22.4% and Portugal at 21.7%.

In France only 5.2% of over-65s worked, while in Spain it was 5.9 per cent, and Germany 11.1%.

In Denmark and Luxembourg, pensioners worked for 22 hours per week, and in Norway - 28 hours. Romanian and Greek pensioners work the most - 40 hours weekly. Bulgarians come next with 38 hours per week, followed by Slovakia and Italy - 36 hours, and Cyprus - 34 hours per week.

On average 15.9% of over-65s in the 28 EU countries continued to work.