Distribution of graduate unemployment in Portugal 2018-2022, by field of study
Portugal's graduate unemployment landscape between 2018 and 2022 reveals a striking imbalance across fields of study. Business sciences, administration, and law graduates faced the highest unemployment rate at 25.7 percent, while information and communication technologies (ICT) graduates experienced the lowest at 1.3 percent. The social sciences, journalism, and information field and arts and humanities presented the second and third-highest shares of unemployed graduates registered in employment centers, with 17 and 15.5 percent, respectively.
Rising graduate numbers, persistent gender gap
The number of higher education graduates in Portugal has more than doubled since the late 1990s, reaching over 95,600 in the 2022/2023 academic year. Women consistently outnumbered men among graduates, with nearly 56,000 female graduates compared to 40,000 male graduates in the most recent year. However, this gender gap reversed in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, where men accounted for 65 percent of graduates across all study cycles during the 2022/2023 academic year.
Improving employment prospects amid growing higher education enrollment
Despite the increasing number of graduates, the risk of unemployment for recent higher education graduates in Portugal has decreased to 3.3 percent in 2022, the lowest in recent years. This improvement comes even after a pandemic-induced rise in 2020. The positive trend occurred as higher education enrollment continues to grow, with over 446,000 students in the 2022/2023 academic year. Universities attract more students than polytechnic institutes across all regions, with Greater Lisbon hosting the largest student population of over 147,000, despite not being the country’s region with the highest number of higher education establishments.
