Highly Qualified Youth Struggle to Find Jobs in Belgium

A growing number of highly qualified young people in Belgium are finding that their advanced degrees are no guarantee of stable employment. Despite record levels of educational attainment — with 52.7% of Belgians aged 25 to 34 holding a higher education degree as of 2025 — many graduates face prolonged job searches, are forced to accept positions below their qualification level, or encounter outright rejection from employers who consider them “overqualified,” according to a report by La Libre Belgique.

A Structural Mismatch

The phenomenon reflects a deepening structural mismatch between the supply of highly educated labor and the demand from the Belgian job market. Over the past two decades, Belgium has experienced a dramatic rise in higher education attainment. In the early 2000s, roughly one-third of young adults held a university or college degree. By 2025, that figure had exceeded one in two, surpassing the United Nations target of 45% as early as 2017, according to Statbel, Belgium’s national statistics office.

Yet the economy has not generated enough high-skilled positions to absorb this growing pool of graduates. The result is a paradoxical situation where additional education can become a liability rather than an asset.

Sara (a pseudonym), a bio-engineer who graduated in 2023, told La Libre Belgique that she dreamed of pursuing scientific research but has been forced to consider positions far below her ambitions. “Even when you apply to companies, it’s not a sure thing,” she said. “Many employers require, for example, a bachelor’s level diploma, and refuse to hire someone more qualified, for cost-saving reasons.”

Overqualification on the Rise

Approximately 10% of Belgian workers under 30 are overqualified for their jobs — performing work below their education and skill level. Across all age groups, between 9.8% and 14.6% of Belgian employees find themselves in roles that do not match their qualifications, according to a study cited by The Bulletin.

This “qualifications mismatch” is particularly acute in fields outside STEM, though even graduates in technical disciplines like bio-engineering face significant hurdles. Some employers actively avoid hiring overqualified candidates, fearing they will demand higher salaries, become dissatisfied with routine tasks, or leave quickly for better opportunities.

Regional Disparities Widen

Belgium’s labor market is characterized by stark regional differences that compound the problem. Brussels leads the country with 63.5% of 25-to-34-year-olds holding higher education degrees, followed by Flanders at 53.5% and Wallonia at 46.3%, Statbel data shows.

Yet the capital also has the lowest youth employment rate. Among 18-to-24-year-olds, only 25% are employed in Brussels, compared to 30% in Wallonia and 40% in Flanders, according to economist Jean Hindriks of UCLouvain, who spoke to RTBF.

“If we look at the same group in Flanders, we see that 40% are employed, while in Wallonia it’s 30% and in Brussels only 25%,” Hindriks said. He described an “invisible wall” between Flanders and Wallonia, noting that cities like Tournai and Mouscron have employment rates 10 percentage points lower than nearby Kortrijk, just across the linguistic border.

The Shift from Unemployment to Inactivity

A particularly concerning trend identified by economists is that while official youth unemployment figures may appear to improve, this masks a shift toward economic inactivity — young people who are neither employed nor actively seeking work.

“We are managing to reactivate more and more seniors, but among young people, we have a real problem,” Hindriks explained. “We see difficulty in organizing this transition from education to employment. There is reluctance, perhaps a certain psychological barrier, a fear of entering the labor market.”

In Brussels, youth unemployment has fallen, but inactivity has risen. “It’s a transfer from unemployment to inactivity,” Hindriks noted. “It hasn’t increased youth employment.”

The Catch-22 of Entry-Level Employment

The challenges faced by new graduates are not new. Writing in MO* Magazine in 2017, 25-year-old job seeker Louis Simoen described the Catch-22 of needing experience to get a job but needing a job to get experience. “I, and we, just want to work, feel useful and especially start our lives with certainty,” he wrote. “Grant us that and take the gamble.”

Nearly a decade later, the situation has only intensified. Belgium’s youth unemployment rate stood at approximately 17.4% in 2025, higher than the EU average, while the Arizona coalition government — led by Prime Minister Bart De Wever since February 2025 — has set an ambitious target of reaching 80% employment by 2030.

Policy Challenges Ahead

The government’s reform agenda, including pension reform and changes to unemployment benefits, has sparked significant opposition, including a general strike in May 2026 that drew tens of thousands of protesters. The Wikipedia article on the 2024–2025 government formation notes that the Arizona coalition faces headwinds from declining youth employment rates.

What to Watch For

As Belgium grapples with these structural labor market challenges, several questions remain unanswered. Can the government’s 80% employment target be reconciled with declining youth employment? Will regional disparities between Flanders, Wallonia, and Brussels narrow or widen? And can the education system adapt to better align graduate output with labor market demand?

For the thousands of highly qualified young Belgians sending out CVs and waiting for replies, the answers cannot come soon enough.