The unemployment rate across the EU stood at 6.0% last year

The unemployment rate across the European Union stood at 6.0% in 2025, a slight increase on the 5.9% rate recorded the previous year, according to Eurostat.

Looking at the year as a whole, Spain reported the highest unemployment rate in the EU, at 10.5%, followed by Finland (9.7%) and Greece (8.9%). At the other end of the scale, Czechia (2.8%), Poland (3.1%) and Malta (3.1%) recorded the lowest unemployment rates.

Education levels

As Eurostat’s data showed, individuals with lower levels of education experienced higher unemployment rates across the EU. In 2025, the unemployment rate of people aged 25 to 74 with a low level of education stood at 10.5%, compared with 4.7% for those with a medium level of education and 3.6% for those with a high level of education.

The highest unemployment rates for people with low educational attainment were in Slovakia (38.8%), Sweden (20.0%) and Finland (18.8%). These countries also showed the largest gaps in unemployment rates between individuals with low and high levels of education.

The gap was 36.7 percentage points in Slovakia (38.8% for people with low educational attainment, compared with 2.1% for those with high educational attainment), 14.9 percentage points in Sweden (20.0% vs 5.1%), and 13.9 percentage points in Finland (18.8% vs 4.9%). Read more here.

Full-Year Unemployment Rate by EU Member State (2024–2025, %)

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