Decent work and economic growth in EU countries—static and dynamic analyses of Sustainable Development Goal 8

The goal of this research is a static geographic comparison of the degree of Sustainable Development Goal 8 (SDG8) implementation and to compare its dynamics for the European Union (EU) in the period of 2002–2021 with the consideration of the COVID-19 pandemic. The level of implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development objectives is monitored both jointly and individually. This research uses the COPRAS, the Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) and the hierarchical clustering methods. The study confirmed the geographical diversity in the degree of SDG8 implementation. Nordic countries have the highest degree of implementation, while Greece, Spain, Italy, Romania and Slovakia have the lowest. Some less-developed countries (Czechia, Poland and Malta) were in the cluster where the implementation improved, and some well-developed countries (France, Luxembourg and Portugal) were in the cluster in which the situation did not improve or improved at a low degree. It was not possible to identify geographical diversity in the dynamics of changes in the degree of SDG8 implementation. The COVID-19 pandemic caused the decline in the degree of SDG8 implementation. The added value of the study consists of comparing the dynamics of the degree of implementation of SDG8 using the DTW method. The obtained conclusions may help to create policies for EU countries in this regard.