In the Latvian labor market at the beginning of 2025, out of 863,000 employed individuals aged 15 and over, 41.5% had higher education, which is an increase of 2.1 percentage points compared to 2021, according to data from the Central Statistical Bureau (CSB).
Among them, 22.1% had a master's degree, 14.7% had a bachelor's degree, 4.1% had a college education, and 0.7% had a doctoral degree.
Data also indicate that at the beginning of 2025, 31.4% of residents in Latvia had higher education, which is 0.3 percentage points more than the previous year. Compared to 2024, the share of women with higher education increased by 0.6 percentage points to 37.5%, while the figure for men remained at the previous year's level of 24.1%.
Since 2019, the share of men with higher education has increased by 1.1 percentage points, while that of women has increased by 3.9 percentage points.
At the same time, looking at the statistics from a popular job portal regarding the highest number of vacancies for specific professions. In the category of "Radio Engineers" - the country needs one, "Financial Analysts" - also one, "Lawyers" - 9 are needed... On the other end of the spectrum, for those specialists in high demand - "Drivers" - there are 546 vacancies!
Of course, one would like to believe that all Latvians with a higher education have found their place in the country according to their field of study, but it seems that today it is easier for them to earn some money by getting behind the wheel, if, of course, they have a license.
By the way, in the top 3 most in-demand professions in the Latvian labor market are also "Cleaners" and "Laborers."
This is the state of our knowledge-intensive workforce production!
