12. Do unemployed adults participate in education and training?

Participation in education and training can affects employability of unemployed persons. The indicator below is defined as the percentage of unemployed adults aged 25 to 64 who participated in education and training in the four weeks preceding the EU labour force survey. 

Unemployed adults’ participation in education and training - last 4 weeks (%)

Source : Eurostat, EU Labour Force Survey (LFS).

Key points

In 2020, 10.5% of unemployed adults in the EU participated in education and training. This was more than one percentage point above the EU average for all adults, regardless of their employment (9.2%). The highest estimated levels of participation by unemployed adults in lifelong learning in 2020 are for Sweden (40.6%), followed by Luxembourg (24.5%) and Finland, Denmark and the Netherlands (23.2%, 23.1%, 23.0% respectively). Lowest estimated levels of participation in 2018 are for Croatia (2.4%) and Hungary (1.9%). Data for 2020 in Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia are not available due to low reliability. 

Between 2015 and 2020, the EU average participation rate for the unemployed increased by 1.2 percentage points. The indicator increased the most in Estonia (+10.6 percentage points). Slovenia and France reported the strongest drop (respectively 4.5 percentage points and 3.7 percentage points). A break in time series for data for 2020 for Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Malta, Poland, and Sweden means that they cannot be reliably compared with data for 2015.The EU set an ambitious quantitative target at 20% to be reached by 2025.  

Outside the EU, participation rates in Iceland, Norway and Switzerland were about or above twice as high as the EU average in 2020. The participation rate declined in Norway (-1.4%), the highest increment was in Switzerland (2.6%). Low participation rates, much poorer than the EU average, were in Serbia (3.2%) and North Macedonia (2.3%). Participation rate in Turkey (9.4) was one percentage point lower that the EU average. 

Table 12. Unemployed adults’ participation in education and training - last 4 weeks (%) 

Source : Eurostat, EU Labour Force Survey (LFS). Notes: (b) ‘break in time series’; (p): ‘provisional’; (u) ‘unreliable’, data are not presented when they are not available and/or do not support sufficiently reliable comparisons across countries or over time.