Bulgaria's University Graduates Take up Unskilled Jobs

Unemployment rates among Bulgaria's university graduates in the last five years have dropped to about 4 percent.

The encouraging statistics, however, are overshadowed by the fact that most of these employees do not occupy positions that require higher education.

Meanwhile, 15 percent of students who work on probation, continue working for the same employer. The data was provided by Bulgaria's Ministry of Education and Science at the Business and Education conference.

Nearly BGN 4B were stipulated in the education budget, which is nearly BGN 13M more in comparison to 2013. Some EUR 600M are expected under the Science and Education 2014-2020 operational program.

Fewer university graduates remain unemployed in recent years, however most of them occupy positions below their education and training level. According to experts, this means that higher education trains more skilled workers than the labor market can employ.

"Some 75% of graduates work on the official Bulgarian labor market. The remaining 25% work in the gray sector or abroad, according to Georgi Stoychev of the Open Society institute.

Currently, 30% of medical students in Bulgaria are foreigners and about a quarter of Bulgarian graduates never work on the local labor market, meaning that half of medicine students in Bulgaria will soon work abroad, Stoychev added.

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