Figures from Eurostat show that the share of young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEETs) has declined over the last decade in 22 EU countries.
In 2015, the percentage of people aged 15 to 29 who were not in education, employment or training was 15.2% across the EU. By 2025, that percentage fell to 11%, with significant declines at the country level.
Italy saw a drop from just over a quarter, to 13.3%. Greece, Croatia and Bulgaria have also seen significant declines.
Belgium, too, saw a drop in the number of NEETs, with its share falling to 9.8% from 14.4% – placing it below the EU average. The fall in Belgium has been led by Brussels, with Statbel data showing Brussels moving from 20.6% to 12.8%, taking it below Wallonia for the first time.
With 19.2% of its young people not in education, employment or training, Romania has the highest share of NEETs across the EU, over four times as many as Belgium. Romania's share has barely moved since a decade ago.
Other countries like Germany and Austria have gone into reverse, with a greater proportion of young people in these countries not in work or a classroom compared to 2015.
Despite progress, is the share of NEETs set to grow?
In Belgium since 2022, the percentage of NEETs has flatlined, hovering between 9.2% to 9.8%. Claudia Pinto from the European Youth Forum told The Brussels Times that this is part of a wider trend across the EU in recent years.
In a special report released last week, the European Court of Auditors (ECA) highlighted why progress in reducing the number of NEETs may have slowed, noting that member state schemes may have achieved success in the last decade by focusing on hitting targets rather than fixing the root causes.
This is storing up a potential rebound in the share of NEETs in the coming years as EU funding reduces and entry-level jobs evaporate.
The risk was highlighted by Massimiliano Mascherini from the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound) who told The Brussels Times, "we need to ensure the opportunities offered to young people are sustainable and of good quality, otherwise the problem will re-emerge in the future".
The ECA warned in their report that the EU has no way of knowing if the money given to member states achieved lasting change, and instead carried the "risk that public money supported jobs that would have been created anyway."
This was echoed by Pinto, who noted that those moving away from NEET status were typically young people who were already closest to the labour market and have more support at home. "More active outreach is needed for some young people as they are not a homogeneous group," he added.
Young people across the EU are still twice as likely to be unemployed as the overall workforce, with the use of artificial intelligence widely cited as an emerging threat to entry level jobs.
Mascherini noted that it was important to properly reflect on the potential impact of AI, as "without junior positions now, there will be no senior workforce tomorrow, which will undermine all our economic models".
