The EU transport sector supports 1.5 million companies and 10 million workers.

Omissions

• Eurostat's latest published figure for enterprises in the EU transportation and storage sector is 1.4 million (2022), not 1.5 million — the speaker rounds up by about 7%.
• Employment is 10.4 million persons in the EU transportation and storage sector (2022), so '10 million workers' is a slight rounding down; the Commission's own wording is 'more than 10 million people'.
• The underlying structural business statistics refer to 2022, i.e. data more than two years old at the time of the October 2026 plenary session; no newer reference year could be retrieved within the search budget.
• The figures cover the NACE 'transportation and storage' sector, which is the standard statistical proxy for 'the transport sector'; some transport-related activities (e.g. parts of manufacturing or services) fall outside this definition.

Sources

• PrimaryEurostat Statistics Explained — Businesses in the transportation and storage sector'In 2022, there were 1.4 million enterprises in the EU's transportation and storage services sector. This is equivalent to 4.4% of the business economy' and 'The enterprises in the transportation and storage services sector employed 10.4 million persons in the EU and generated a net turnover of €1.9 trillion'
• PrimaryEuropean Commission — EU Transport, Mobility Strategy'With transport contributing around 5% to EU GDP and employing more than 10 million people in Europe, the transport system is critical to European businesses'
• PrimaryEurostat Statistics Explained — Employment in foreign-controlled multinational enterprise transport groups'From 2018 to 2023, foreign-controlled MNE groups increased their workforce in transport and storage by 30%, reaching 1.3 million employees, or 12% of sector' (implying total sector employment of roughly 10.8 million)