Malta has ranked second in the European Union for youth employment in 2025, with 82.1% of people aged 20 to 29 in work – a result that places the small island economy ahead of considerably larger member states and well above the bloc-wide average of 65.5%.

Only the Netherlands, at 84.0%, records a higher rate among 20 to 29-year-olds. Germany rounds out the top three at 77.0%. Malta’s position is a notable achievement, underlining the strength of its labour market for younger workers at a time when youth employment remains uneven across the continent.

The picture is markedly different at the lower end of the table. Italy records the weakest result in the EU at 47.6%, meaning fewer than half of 20 to 29-year-olds there are in employment. Romania comes in at 52.0% and Bulgaria at 52.7%, both sitting well below the bloc average.

The spread between best and worst performer runs to nearly 37 percentage points – a gap that points to deep structural differences rather than any single shared European labour market experience. A young person in the Netherlands is almost twice as likely to be in work as one in Italy and Malta’s result places it firmly among the bloc’s strongest performers.

The 65.5% EU-wide figure offers a useful benchmark, but the country-level data tells the more revealing story – one in which geography continues to play a decisive role in the employment prospects of young Europeans.