University graduates face tougher job search as unemployment rises

Unemployment among university graduates increased between 2023 and 2025, with people still seeking work one year after completing their studies facing the greatest difficulty, SRF reported.

The unemployment rate rose from 3.9% to 6.4% among people with a university master’s degree and from 3.4% to 4.9% among people with a bachelor’s degree from a university of applied sciences, according to the Federal Statistical Office’s survey of university graduates.

The increase has also affected fields that had previously been largely spared. Among university master’s graduates, unemployment rose from 2.1% to 4.8% in technical sciences and from 3.5% to 8.5% in economics. It increased from 4.5% to 6.8% in exact and natural sciences, and from 5.1% to 8.5% in the humanities and social sciences.

Graduates most frequently cited a lack of professional experience as the reason for being unemployed. Jérôme Consandey, director of the labour directorate at the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, said companies typically hesitate to hire new staff when the economic outlook is uncertain, which tends to affect people without work experience more strongly.

Marco Salvi of the liberal think tank Avenir Suisse said university graduates generally take somewhat longer to find a suitable position because many degree programmes are not tailored to specific professions. This differs from vocational training, he said. The gap disappears after several years, with unemployment generally lower among people with a university degree than among those without one.

Salvi added that the outlook for economic growth had improved in recent months. He said artificial intelligence had so far created more jobs than it had eliminated, but that it was too early to assess its effects on the labour market. Consandey also said there was no clear link between the rise in graduate unemployment and artificial intelligence. Its impact on the labour market and on study choices will need to be monitored, he said.