against worldwide ones since the crisis. Of the 50 most valuable global firms, only seven were European as of 2015, compared to 17 in 2006. Out of 24 economic sectors, Europe only leads in one - food, which is led by Nestlé from Switzerland. Companies like HSBC, Vodafone, TotalEnergies and BNP Paribas have all also sled in their respective industries against American and Asian competitors. In addition, former technologic heavyweights like Nokia, Ericsson and Alcatel have also declined against evolving American companies in the Silicon Valley. While the bottom 80% of the European population's income has increased by an estimated 40% on average since 1980, the top 1%'s pre-tax income has more than doubled. Employment in the European Union reached a new high in 2019. While many social and economic indicators have converged across EU regions, the global financial crisis resulted in a sharp divergence in unemployment rates. Recently, these ranged from less than 2% in Prague to more than 20% in parts of Greece, southern Spain, and southern Italy. Rapid technological change also had an effect on medium-skilled workers resulting in more low-skilled jobs being taken up. 2016–present: Brexit, COVID pandemic and Russian invasion of Ukraine In 2016, the United Kingdom became the first nation to vote to leave the European Union since its modern iteration in the post-Cold War era, reducing the number of the said bloc's membership down to 27 member states for the time being. U.K.'s exit caused a drop in both the country's and the overall bloc's overall GDP output. The continental economy also suffered a decline as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic that raged globally in the beginning of the 2020s decade. In 2022, the Russian war on Ukraine prompted both Ukraine and Moldova to be granted immediate candidate status by the European Union for economic and security reasons, with Bosnia and Herzegovina following suit later that same year. Croatia recently became the newest member of the Eurozone after officially adopting the euro as its currency in the beginning of 2023. Regional variation European countries with a long history of trade, a free market system, and a high level of development in the previous century are generally in the north and west of the continent. They tend to be wealthier and more stable than countries congregated in the European East and South, even though the gap is converging, especially in Central and Eastern