By Andrei Skvarsky.
Belgium is the European country with the best employment and career opportunities for LGBT+ people while the labour markets of Cyprus and Lithuania have some of Europe’s scantiest offers to make to members of sexual and gender minorities, a study by digital PR company Reboot suggests.
Luxembourg is the second- and Denmark the third-best country in Europe in terms of prospects for LGBT+ workers, according to the study.
The London-based PR company presents its findings in the form of a league table listing 30 European countries – the 27 European Union members, Britain, Serbia and North Macedonia.
A country’s position on the list is determined by a general score that is calculated from scores purporting to reflect the extent to which the nation meets four LGBT+ status and rights criteria – openness at work, inclusivity in looking for a job, workplace equality, and workplace representation.
The scoring is based on statistics from the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) and EU statistical authority Eurostat.
The study marks LGBT Pride Month, an annual series of LGBT+ rights and identity promotion events in June.
None of the 30 countries receives the maximum general score of 10 points.
Belgium musters 8.7, Luxembourg 8.3 and Denmark 8.1 points.
According to a statement from Reboot, the employment rates among the LGBT+ communities in Belgium and Luxembourg are respectively 17 per cent and 19 per cent lower than the rates among the rest of the Belgians and Luxembourgers.
In Luxembourg, a vast majority of LGBT+ workers either keep their sexuality completely secret from their colleagues or are selectively open about it, the statement says. This results in the country’s openness at work score of 7.2 in the Reboot table.
As the maximum general score, 10 is the highest score for fulfilling each of the four criteria.
Denmark wins the maximum 10 points in the openness at work, inclusivity in job seeking and workplace equality categories but the employment rate among the country’s LGBT+ minority is 30 per cent lower than that among the rest of its population.
This earns Denmark a workplace representation score of 2.4. It is lower than what is won by the majority of the nations on the list, including Cyprus, which scores 4.1 despite sharing the bottom 26th place in the table with Lithuania.
Hungary, which is 20th in Reboot’s table, has jumped to the top of the EU’s LGBT+ agenda this month as the source of a scandal that erupted after Reboot published its findings.
Hungary has been threatened with action to expel it from the EU for bringing out what the bloc sees is anti-LGBT legislation. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has been widely quoted as saying Hungary “has no business being in the European Union any more” and that his “long-term aim is to bring Hungary to its knees on this issue”.
At a summit in Brussels on June 25, EU leaders lambasted Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban over the law. Orban denied that the legislation, brought into being by his ruling right-wing Fidesz party, was discriminatory.
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