Malta boasts the highest percentage of recent graduates to have entered the workforce, with 95.8% of recent graduates now in employment, new data from Eurostat has shown.
According to the data, other European countries to see a large percentage of recent graduates enter the workforce include the Netherlands (93.2%), Germany (91.5%), Austria (89.0%), Ireland (88.7%) and Hungary (87.9%).
At the other end of the spectrum, just over two thirds (67.5%) of recent graduates in Italy have entered the workforce, with relatively low percentages also recorded in Greece (72.5%), Romania (74.8%) and Croatia (78.2%).
Overall, in 2023, 83.5% of recent graduates in the EU secured employment, reflecting a 1.1 percentage point increase from 2022 when the employment rate was 82.4%.
Over the last decade, there has been a consistent rise in the employment rate of recent graduates, starting from 74.3% in 2013. The only significant decline occurred in 2020 due to the pandemic, with the rate dropping to 78.7%, down 2.3 percentage points from 2019’s 81.0%.
Eurostat defines ‘recent graduates’ as ‘individuals aged 20-34, who completed their studies within the past one to three years at medium or tertiary education levels’.
Percentage of recent graduates that have entered the workforce, by EU country
| Malta | 95.8% |
| Netherlands | 93.2% |
| Germany | 91.5% |
| Austria | 89.0% |
| Ireland | 88.7% |
| Hungary | 87.9% |
| Sweden | 87.9% |
| Belgium | 86.4% |
| Poland | 85.8% |
| Czechia | 85.4% |
| Slovenia | 85.4% |
| Latvia | 85.2% |
| Estonia | 84.7% |
| Luxembourg | 84.7% |
| Denmark | 84.6% |
| Slovakia | 84.5% |
| Bulgaria | 84.2% |
| Finland | 84.0% |
| Portugal | 82.4% |
| Cyprus | 80.6% |
| France | 80.1% |
| Lithuania | 80.0% |
| Spain | 78.7% |
| Croatia | 78.2% |
| Romania | 74.8% |
| Greece | 72.3% |
| Italy | 67.5% |
