08/05/2015 (Agence Europe) - Employment rate progressing but not up to pre-crisis level. On Thursday 7 May, the EU's statistical office Eurostat said that for the first time since the 2008 financial crisis the rate of employment for 20-64 year olds in the EU had increased in 2014 to stand at 69.2% (compared with 68.4% in 2013). Nevertheless, this rate remains below that of before the crisis (70.3%). While a few member states (Sweden, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands and Denmark) go beyond the 75% threshold set by the EU as the objective to be achieved by 2020 (EUROPE 2020 strategy), the large majority of member states do not reach this threshold and will not do so by the 2020 target date. These data come from a broad survey carried out on the workforce by Eurostat. It is available at: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Labour_market_and_Labour_force_survey_ (LFS)_statistics (JK)