The employment rate of young recent graduates in Belgium is far lower than in the majority of neighbouring countries, a recent study has found.
According to a report published on Thursday by Eurostat, the EU's official statistics office, 82.9% of recent Belgian graduates between the ages of 20 and 34 are currently gainfully employed.
This is far below the proportion in Luxembourg (93.4%), the Netherlands (92.9%) and Germany (92.2%). It is, however, slightly higher than in France (78.6%) and the rest of the EU (82%).
Overall, Belgium registered the 16th-highest employment rate in the EU. Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Germany posted the top three graduate employment rates within the bloc. By contrast, Italy recorded the lowest rate (65.2%), followed by Greece (66.1%) and Romania (69.9%).
Except for during the Covid-19 pandemic, the EU's average graduate employment rate has steadily increased over the past nine years. Overall, the group's employment rate grew by 7 percentage points from 2014 to 2022.
Male EU graduates (83.5%) are currently employed at slightly higher rates than female graduates (81.3%): a trend that has also persisted since 2014.
