Education plays a major role in the labour market. According to Eurostat, higher levels of education are typically associated with higher employment rates and greater lifetime earnings.
However, for many recent graduates, finding a job can still take time. Competition is intense. In the UK, for instance, employers received more than 1.2 million applications for just under 17,000 graduate vacancies in 2024, according to the Institute of Student Employers (ISE). This means each graduate position attracted an average of 140 applications.
This marks the highest level of competition in more than three decades, since the ISE began collecting such data in 1991.
So, how are employment levels among recent university graduates across Europe? And which countries offer the best job prospects for young people entering the labour market?
According to Eurostat, an average of 84.9% of recent tertiary graduates in the EU were employed in 2024. This figure covers individuals aged 20 to 34 who completed their studies within the past three years and are not in education and training.
The dataset does not provide a detailed time breakdown. However, it includes two categories, ‘three years or less’ and ‘from one to three years’ after graduation, which are both presented in the chart.
Tertiary education is defined as levels 5–8 of the ISCED classification, which include short-cycle tertiary programmes, as well as bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees, collectively known as higher or university education.
The employment rate of recent university graduates varies widely across Europe, ranging from 63.5% in Turkey to 93.7% in Bulgaria among 33 countries. Among EU member states, Greece records the lowest rate at 72.7%.
Turkey, which ranks at the bottom of the list, also has the highest labour market slack in Europe, reaching 25.8% in the second quarter of 2025.
University–labour market mismatch in Turkey
“Rapid expansion of the university sector has made it difficult to uphold the quality of tertiary courses, aggravating the decline in labour-market returns to students,” OECD’s Turkey Desk said. Noting Turkey’s relatively low share of graduates in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects, “There seems to be a large gap between the skills demanded by the labour market and the skills acquired by students in universities,” they added.
Turkey is the only country in Europe where the unemployment rate among university graduates is higher than that of the general population.
Although Bulgaria stands out as an exception, Southern and Southeastern Europe generally lag behind, while Northern and Central European countries tend to show much higher employment rates.
In eight countries, the employment rate of recent tertiary graduates exceeds 90%. Besides Bulgaria, these include Estonia (93.6%), the Netherlands (92.7%), Norway (92.3%), Iceland (92.0%), Germany (91.9%), as well as Hungary and Poland (both 90.5%).
Employment below 80% in Italy and France
At the other end of the scale, apart from Turkey, the employment rate is below 80% in six countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina (72.1%), Greece (72.7%), Italy (74.3%), Serbia (76.3%), and France (79.9%).
This means that more than one in five recent university graduates are not in employment. However, this does not necessarily mean they are officially unemployed. Some may be part of labour market slack or hidden unemployment, meaning they are available to work but not actively seeking a job or are underemployed.
Germany is the best among top economies
Among the EU’s four largest economies, Italy and France stand out, with more than one in five recent graduates not in employment. Spain performs slightly better, with an employment rate of 82%, but remains close to France’s level. Germany, on the other hand, records the highest employment rate within the first three years after graduation, at 91.9%.
Data for the United Kingdom is not available in Eurostat. However, according to HESA, among 2022/23 graduates, 82% of respondents in the UK were in employment or unpaid work. The data was collected approximately 15 months after graduation, so it is not directly comparable with Eurostat figures.
Men are still more likely to find jobs after graduation
Across the EU, men generally have a higher employment rate than women among recent university graduates: 86% compared with 84%. However, out of 33 countries, eight show higher employment rates for women than for men.
The largest gap in favour of women is observed in Greece, where 75.9% of women are employed compared with 68.5% of men — a difference of 7.4 percentage points (pp). It is followed by Croatia (5.9 pp) and Spain (4.2 pp).
Turkey and Greece: Neighbours in opposite directions
In contrast to Greece, Turkey records the largest gender gap in favour of men, with 74.2% of men employed compared to 55.2% of women, a difference of 19 percentage points. Slovenia (17.3 pp), Latvia (14.8 pp), and Iceland and Serbia (both 10.1 pp) follow Turkey with similarly high gender gaps.
The two neighbouring countries, Turkey and Greece, thus stand at opposite ends of the spectrum, moving in very different directions when it comes to gender equality in graduate employment.
Turkey also has the lowest employment rate for recent tertiary graduates, at 55.2%. Almost half of Turkish women (44.8%) who completed university within the past three years are not in employment.
In contrast, Norway records the highest rate, with 93.3% of recent graduates employed.
Across the EU, individuals with higher education earn on average 38% more than those with a medium level of education, and 68% more than those with a low level of education.
