Small rise in unemployment among highly educated people

Highly educated people found it slightly harder to get a job in 2025. This also applied to graduates up to the age of 35: 3.3 per cent were without work. Among women, the percentage was even higher.

Young highly educated people (25 to 35-year-olds) found work slightly less often over the past year: 3.3 per cent were unemployed. In 2024, this was 3.1 per cent.

Women were more often looking for work: 3.7 per cent of them had no job, compared with 2.9 per cent of men.

Even so, highly educated people in the Netherlands are still relatively likely to find work. The average unemployment rate among 25 to 35-year-olds is 3.7 per cent – higher, therefore, than among graduates from universities of applied sciences and research universities. Among low-educated people, it is as high as 7.1 per cent. The difference has become somewhat smaller in recent years.

Unemployment in the Netherlands among the entire highly educated labour force (15 to 75 years) differed little from that among 25 to 35-year-olds. It also increased slightly: 3.1 per cent of them were without work in 2025, compared with 2.8 per cent the year before. This concerns around 134 thousand people, including 80 thousand with a bachelor’s and 54 thousand with a master’s or doctorate.