13. Do unemployed adults participate in education and training?

The indicator below is defined as the percentage of unemployed adults aged 25-64 who participated in education and training (lifelong learning) in the four weeks preceding the survey.

Figure 13: Unemployed adults in lifelong learning (%)

Source: Eurostat, EU labour force survey.

Key points

In 2016, on average, 9.6% of unemployed adults in the EU reported that they had been in receipt of lifelong learning. This is slightly below the average percentage for all adults, unemployed or not (10.8%). Between 2013 and 2016, the participation rate for the unemployed has decreased by 0.7 percentage points.

Sweden (42.9%) and Denmark (34.4%) had the highest levels of participation by unemployed adults in lifelong learning in 2016. Participation of the unemployed in lifelong learning was below 5.0% in the Czech Republic, Greece, Poland, and Slovakia. Between 2013 and 2016, the participation rate increased most in Finland (by 2.7 percentage points) while Austria experienced the sharpest drop (by 5.3 percentage points). In both these cases, with Finland at 21.2% in 2016 and Austria at 16.3%, participation rates were well above the EU average.

Outside the EU, participation rates in lifelong learning of unemployed in Iceland, Switzerland, and Norway were (much) above the EU average in 2016 while the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (at 2.7%) reported a much lower participation rate. Turkey (at 9.2%) had a participation rate more or less equal to the EU average.

Table 13: Unemployed adults in lifelong learning (%)