In 2025, the employment rate of young people aged 20 to 34 who recently completed secondary or higher education in the European Union countries was 83.0%, up from 82.3% in 2024. The data for Latvia is generally encouraging.
According to Eurostat, the employment rate among recent graduates with higher education in 2025 was 87.0%, which is nearly 10 percentage points higher than among graduates with secondary education, where the figure reached 77.2%.
Among EU countries, the highest employment rate for recent graduates was recorded in Malta at 91.0%. This was followed by Germany (90.6%) and the Netherlands (90.1%).
The lowest rates were registered in Greece (62.4%), Italy (71.8%), and Romania (72.7%).
In Latvia, this figure stands at 83.1%, which corresponds to the EU average. Studying in Latvia is not in vain - educated individuals have good employment prospects. University graduates fare even better, with 92.1% of them employed.
Men find jobs more easily
On average in the EU, the employment rate among recent graduates was higher for men (84.4%) than for women (81.5%).
In 18 EU countries, the employment rate among recent graduates was higher for men than for women. The largest gap was recorded in the Czech Republic (+12.2 percentage points), Latvia (+10.3 percentage points), and Slovenia (+6.3 percentage points).
In those countries where the employment rate was higher for women, the largest differences were noted in Greece (+11.8 percentage points in favor of women), Estonia (+5.0 percentage points), and Finland (+4.4 percentage points).
