Employment among young adults in the EU who recently finished upper secondary or tertiary education rose to 83.0% in 2025, up from 82.3% a year earlier.
The figures cover 20 to 34-year-olds who had recently completed education and were not in further education or training, Eurostat reported on Monday.
Over the past 11 years, the employment rate for recent graduates increased by 7.5 percentage points.
Graduates with tertiary education — such as university-level qualifications — had an employment rate of 87.0% in 2025, compared with 77.2% among those with a medium level of education.
Across EU countries, Malta recorded the highest employment rate for recent graduates at 91.0%, followed by Germany at 90.6% and the Netherlands at 90.1%.
Greece had the lowest rate at 62.4%, followed by Italy at 71.8% and Romania at 72.7%.
Men recorded higher employment rates than women
The employment rate among recent graduates was 84.4% for men and 81.5% for women at EU level in 2025, Eurostat said.
Czechia had the highest employment rate for male recent graduates at 92.4%, followed by the Netherlands at 92.1% and Germany at 92.0%.
The lowest rates for men were in Greece at 56.8%, Italy at 73.3% and Romania at 74.9%.
For women, the highest employment rates were in Malta at 90.5%, Germany at 89.0% and Austria at 88.8%, while the lowest were in Greece at 68.6%, Italy at 70.2% and Romania at 70.3%.
In 18 EU countries, employment rates for recent graduates were higher for men than for women, with the largest gaps in Czechia (12.2 percentage points), Latvia (10.3) and Slovenia (6.3).
Where women had higher rates, the biggest differences were in Greece (11.8 percentage points), Estonia (5.0) and Finland (4.4).
