In 2022, 72 percent of EU youth (aged 15-29) remained out of the workforce during formal education. Another 25 percent worked during their studies and 3 percent were available for work and actively looking for work (unemployed), according to data published today by the European statistics office Eurostat on its website.
In the dynamics of the transition of young people from formal education to the labor market, significant differences are observed in individual EU countries. These differences may be influenced by national education systems, access to training, labor market characteristics and cultural factors.
Although a quarter of young Europeans worked while studying, there are also significant national differences in this statistic. At national level, the highest proportion of young people working during their formal education is observed in the Netherlands (73 percent), Denmark (52 percent) and Germany (45 percent). At the same time, the lowest share is reported by Romania (2 percent), Slovakia (5 percent) and Hungary (6 percent), with Bulgaria ranking immediately above Hungary with nearly 7 percent of working youth.
The highest shares of youth in formal education who are available for work and actively looking for work are reported in Sweden (13 percent), Finland (7 percent) and the Netherlands (6 percent). In contrast, in Hungary, the Czech Republic, Romania, Croatia, Poland and Lithuania, the share of young people (aged 15-29) looking for work is less than 1 percent, while the share of out-of-school learners labor force, is among the highest.
