Youth unemployment in Romania is on the rise

Romania has become the EU country with the highest unemployment rate among young people under 25 (26.3%), according to official data from Eurostat published in December 2024. Our country has thus surpassed countries such as Spain and Greece, where youth unemployment has always been a constant problem.

In December 2024, the unemployment rate for all age groups in Romania was relatively low, at 5.7% of the working population, slightly below the European average of 5.8%, and much lower than in countries such as Spain (10.6%), Greece (9.3%), Finland (8.7%), Sweden (8.6%), and Estonia (7.8%). A lower unemployment rate can be found in countries such as the Czech Republic (2.6%), Poland (2.7%), and Malta (3%).

However, the situation is different among young people under the age of 25. Here, Romania became the European "champion" in December 2024, with an unemployment rate of 26.3%, followed by countries where unemployment is generally high, such as Spain (25.2%), Sweden (23.5%), and Greece (22.5%), the EU average for youth unemployment being 14.6%. Hungary is just below the EU average, with 14.4% of young people in the labor force unemployed, and Bulgaria with 9.6%.

Looking at gender differences, Romania is a special case, as the youth unemployment rate is the same for both women and men. In contrast, in Lithuania, the youth unemployment rate was 5.5% for men and 18.6% for women. A similar situation can be found in Greece, where youth unemployment affects 19.9% of men and 26.3% of women. At the opposite end of the spectrum, in Luxembourg and Belgium, the unemployment rate is higher among young men than among women, reaching 24.7% compared to 17.7% in Luxembourg and 19.6% compared to 14.9% in Belgium.

The equality between young women and young men in terms of unemployment in Romania is not a cause for celebration, nor is the very high youth unemployment rate. Currently, the youth unemployment rate in Romania has exceeded the European level in 2013, in the midst of the euro crisis.

Romania has always had a high youth unemployment rate, exceeding the EU average since 2007, when it became a member country. However, this is the first time that Romania has taken the top spot, with the countries most affected by youth unemployment generally being Spain, Greece, and Italy, but where the situation for young people has gradually improved. Poland also faced this problem until 2014, when the rate fell below the EU average. In comparison, Germany has always had a rate below the European average.

Romania also performs very poorly on the NEET indicator, which shows the percentage of young people under 29 who are neither employed nor enrolled in education, with the highest rate in the EU in 2024 (19.4%), compared to the European average of 11%.

The figures show that there is a need for a national social and economic policy specifically dedicated to young people, addressing both the issues of school dropout and the quality of education, introducing financial support measures for students and teachers where needed, as well as the issues of skills and "employability" of young people, adapting the school curriculum to the needs of the labor market. At the same time, a public communication campaign is needed to combat employers' reluctance to recruit young people under the age of 25.

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Data processing and text design: Maria-Luiza Apostolescu

Infographic: Pascalone Media SRL