Nearly 85% of graduates in Bulgaria aged 20-34, who graduated last year, have found a job and have successfully acquired the knowledge, show data from Eurostat's analysis of the employment rate of graduates in the EU in 2018

The employment index of Bulgaria’s graduates is even higher than the EU average, where 83% of graduates have started to work.

According to current NSI data, last year, about 54,500 students have graduated from their higher education in Bulgaria and more than 46,000 of them have successfully completed the labor market. The remaining nearly 8,000 graduates may have encountered difficulties to find a job or retrain at a lower level of employment.

According to the national statistics, in 2018 the number of students in Bulgaria who graduated the Business Administration specialization was slightly higher - just over 15 000. A second group of graduates was in the field of "Science for Society" just over 6,000 people, and third was the group of 4,800 graduates with a "Education" qualification.

The smallest amount are the students who graduated in Foreign Languages ​​and Law, both groups with about 1 200 students.

There is also a large gender imbalance in university graduates - 32,800 women vs. 21,600 men, that is, the number of female university graduates is with about 11,000 higher than the number of male graduates.

NSI data also show a tendency for a significant reduction of graduates in Bulgaria for the period 2013-2018 - in 2013, the graduates were 66,400 in total, compared with 54,400 last year, or nearly 12,000 less graduates for a 5-year period.