Page 12 - IDEA Study 10 2015 Skills Mismatches

Figure 2. Educational structure of young cohorts (25-35 years old) 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 Primary education Secondary education without school-leaving exam Secondary education with school-leaving exam Tertiary education Source: Czech Labor Force Survey data (1994-2014), own calculation Naturally, the level of education is highly correlated with the unemployment probability of young graduates.7 Figure 3 reports unemployment rates of individuals aged 25-35 by the highest level of their education and its evolution over the past 20 years. The unemployment rates are by far the highest among primary educated reaching more than 30% in times of economic crises (1999-2001, 2004-2006, 2009, and 2012) and dropping to no less than 20% in times of economic prosperity. However, as was illustrated in Figure 2, the share of primary educated is very small and thus these high unemployment rates concern only a very small number of young individuals. Unemployment rates for the three groups of more educated graduates are substantially lower, not exceeding 10% even in times of economic turmoil. Young individuals with secondary education, but without a school leaving examination, currently face unemployment rates around 9%, those with school leaving examination around 5% and unemployment rates of tertiary educated are as low as 4.4%. 7 Obviously, unemployment rates are mostly driven by personal characteristics of individuals, and the correlation of education attainment with the unemployment rates can be driven by causal impact of education on unemployment probability, but also by self-selection of people with better labor market prospects to higher levels of education. 8 0 20 40 60 80 100