Germany: in 2000 young people with upper secondary education were 2.3 times as often unemployed as university graduates; in 2025, just as often
People aged 25–34: 2.7% with tertiary and 6.2% with upper secondary then, 4.0% and 3.9% now, a gap within the survey error. In the US in 2025: 3.1% and 5.5%.
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In Germany young people with school and vocational training used to be out of work far more often than university graduates. By the mid-2020s the gap was gone: both groups have the same unemployment. That does not mean a degree is useless: pay is not covered here.
Lines: unemployment of people aged 25–34, % of each group's labour force: with tertiary education (ISCED 5–8) and with upper secondary or post-secondary non-tertiary (ISCED 3–4, in Germany usually vocational training).
- Germany: unemployment aged 25–34, tertiary / upper secondary % of labour force
2000: 2.7 / 6.2; 2005: 5.8 / 10.9; 2010: 3.5 / 7.4; 2015: 3.2 / 4.6; 2020: 3.7 / 4.0; 2025: 4.0 / 3.9
- US: unemployment aged 25–34, tertiary / upper secondary (2025) % of labour force
3.1 / 5.5
- Europe, ages 25–29: countries where unemployment with tertiary is not lower (2025) countries
8 / 29
OECD: Education at a Glance; Eurostat: EU Labour Force Survey · CC BY 4.0
OECD, Education at a Glance: unemployment aged 25–34 by education with survey errors. 2025: gap −0.1 pp with a standard error of 0.13, below 1.96 errors. US 2025: gap 2.4 pp, error 0.35. Eurostat (lfsa_urgaed), ages 25–29, 2025: unemployment with tertiary is not lower than with upper secondary in 8 of 29 European countries.
The OECD marks a break in Germany's series before 2015 (survey change), so early and late levels are not exactly comparable; the gap between groups within one year is unaffected. Among 25–29-year-olds in 2025 the same or worse for graduates holds in Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Greece, Netherlands, North Macedonia and Turkey. The data show timing, not cause.
A question for this picture
And where have graduates, the other way round, become less often unemployed?