The EU furniture industry accounts for about half of the world's furniture production with a production value of € 82 billion. As a labour-intensive industry it provides employment for around one million people. Material and service costs make up more than 60% of the production value. The value added represents around 40% of the production, with labour costs accounting for about 78%.
The furniture sector is a basic industry in most of the industrialised countries, representing in general between 2 and 4% of the production value of the manufacturing sector.

The EU furniture industry is an assembling industry, which employs various raw materials to manufacture its products. They range from wooden boards to metal through leather and glass.
The furniture industry in the EU accounts for 8,800 enterprises with over 20 employees, employing 600,000 people, and more than 80,000 enterprises with under 20 employees (employing almost 300,000 persons).
Germany is the largest furniture producing country, representing over 27% of total EU production, followed by Italy (21.6%), France (13.5%) and the UK (10.4%).
Upholstered furniture and kitchen furniture are the largest industry sectors representing 14.5% (valued at more than 10 billion euro worth of production: +4.5% compared with 1997) and 13% (+2.7%) respectively. Three other significant sub-sectors are office furniture (11.7% of total production), dining room furniture (11.5%) and bedroom furniture (10.3%).
At the end of its lifetime furniture generally becomes municipal solid waste. The main options for furniture waste are:
reduction at source (including re-use of products) - changes in the design, manufacturing, purchase, or use of materials or products (including packaging) can reduce the amount or toxicity before they become municipal solid waste
waste combustion (preferably with energy recovery) and land filling
recycling of materials.
Furniture can easily be disassembled and parts reused, materials recycled into new materials or exploited for energy purposes. Between 30 and 40% of old furniture ends up in second-hand or third-hand markets and therefore is re-used, extending the lifetime of products. For information about the recovery of 'end of cycle' furniture and its materials, follow this link to the Federation of European Furniture Manufacturers' website.