How Fast Do Graduates Find Work in Europe? What the Data Shows by Country

Finishing a degree or vocational qualification is one step. Finding a job is the next - and in the EU, how quickly that happens depends significantly on what level you studied to and where you live.

Eurostat's EU labour force survey tracks employment rates for recent graduates aged 20-34 who left education 1, 2 or 3 years before the survey and were not in any education or training in the 4 weeks before the interview. The figures below reflect 2025 data.

Degree Level Is the Strongest Predictor

In 2025, recent tertiary graduates in the EU had an employment rate of 87.0%. For those who completed medium-level education - upper secondary or post-secondary non-tertiary - the rate was 77.2%. The gap between the two groups stands at 9.8 percentage points.

That gap has persisted over the past decade. It narrowed to 8.9 pp in 2018 but has since widened again.

Looking further back, tertiary graduate employment was at its lowest in 2015, at 80.4%. It rose to 85.1% in 2019, fell in 2020 with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, recovered to 87.6% by 2023, eased to 86.7% in 2024, and edged back up to 87.0% in 2025.

Countries Where Tertiary Graduates Find Work Fastest

Country-level differences are substantial. In 2025, tertiary graduate employment rates reached 90% or more in Estonia, Malta, Hungary, Lithuania, Ireland, Germany, Luxembourg, Poland, the Netherlands, Latvia, Sweden, Slovenia, Austria and Bulgaria.

In 2 EU countries - Greece and Italy - the rate was below 80% for this group.

These figures apply to graduates who had not returned to any formal or non-formal education or training at the time of the survey.

Vocational Training vs. General Education

The EU set a target: the employment rate of recent vocational education and training (VET) graduates should reach at least 82% by 2025. Across the EU, the rate came in at 80.2% - just below the threshold.

Eight EU countries met the 82% target: Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Czechia, Austria, Sweden, Hungary and Slovakia. Germany recorded the highest rate at 91.5%. The lowest were Greece at 58.0%, Romania at 63.4% and Italy at 64.9%.

Eurostat's data also show that in most EU countries, vocational graduates found employment at higher rates than those who completed general upper secondary education. The source notes that education and training programmes tied to specific occupations appear to increase the likelihood that graduates find a job.

The Gender Gap in Graduate Employment

In 2025, the EU employment rate for recent male graduates was 84.4%, compared to 81.5% for female graduates - a difference of 2.9 pp. Among recent VET graduates specifically, the gap was 3.3 pp: men at 81.5% and women at 78.2%.

Country-level variation is wide. In 18 EU countries, men had a higher employment rate than women by 1.2 pp or more. The largest gap in favour of men was in Czechia at 12.2 pp. In 9 EU countries, women had the higher rate; the largest was in Greece, where women's employment rate exceeded men's by 11.8 pp.

For VET graduates, the largest gender gaps in favour of men appeared in Lithuania (16.0 pp), Poland (12.4 pp) and Hungary (11.2 pp). In Spain (5.6 pp) and Finland (5.8 pp), female VET graduates had the higher rate.

Eurostat notes that some gender differences may be linked to which subjects women and men study - for example, a higher share of science and technology students tend to be male.

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Source: Eurostat, EU labour force survey. All figures cover recent graduates aged 20-34 who completed their highest level of education 1, 2 or 3 years before the survey and were not in education or training at the time of the interview.