Portugal 2016

ENQUADRAMENTO SOCIOECONÓMICO POPULAÇÃO ATIVA, EMPREGO E DESEMPREGO SOCIO-ECONOMIC FRAMEWORK LABOUR FORCE, EMPLOYMENT AND UNEMPLOYMENT 29 The labour force’s educational attainment continued to follow the upward trend observed since 1998, with a decline in the share of persons with completed lower secondary education. In 2016 the corresponding proportion of the labour force accounted for 48.8% of the total, compared to 80.3% in 1998 (70.0% in 2008). Conversely, the shares for upper secondary and post- secondary education increased, from 10.9% and 8.7% in 2008 to 26.0% and 25.2% respectively. A comparison with figures for the EU27 shows that, on average, the labour force in Portugal is less skilled, although this gap tends to be narrowed. In 2016 the share of the labour force with completed tertiary education was 26.0% in Portugal and 32.7% in the EU27, compared to 9.9% and 20.7% respectively in 2000. In addition, the differential in upper secondary and post-secondary education was unfavourable for Portugal (27.1% and 47.7% respectively in 2016), and also declined (in 2000 the differential was 34.8 p.p., and the recovery in 2016 was almost entirely due to the progression in Portugal). However, the main evidence of a difference in skills was given by the 2016 share of the labour force, whose maximum degree of skills was lower than secondary education, i.e. 46.9% in Portugal, against 19.3% in the EU27 on average.